


Enter Night

by callowyn, thegeminisage



Series: Cambionverse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 66 Seals (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel True Forms, Centralia Pennsylvania, Dreamscapes, Episode: s06e22 The Man Who Knew Too Much, Gen, Heaven, Lucifer's Cage, Prequel, Purgatory, Season/Series 06, Trans Meg Masters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callowyn/pseuds/callowyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage/pseuds/thegeminisage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March 29th, 2019: The Antichrist comes home to find a pair of hunters in the ashes of the life he left behind.</p><p>October 31st, 2016: Ben Braeden and Claire Novak, both looking for their fathers, find each other instead.</p><p>March 29th, 2016: Sam and Dean Winchester vanish without a trace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It’s here at last! Enter Night is the long-awaited prequel to _Cambion_ and _Only Human_ , covering the events leading up to March 29th, 2016, Jesse’s fateful 18th birthday, the day he killed the Simms family while across the world the Winchesters disappeared. 
> 
> When we first wrote Cambion for the 2011 Big Bang, 2016 seemed like a very, very long time away, and we had no idea we would still be working on this project five years later. Whether you joined us five years ago or yesterday, we’re so very grateful to and humbled by everyone who’s stuck with us, and absolutely thrilled to present this story on the actual day it happens, in real time. Happy 18th, Jesse Turner. We promise it’ll get better from here.
> 
>  **Warnings:** This story includes descriptions of both visual and auditory hallucinations, nightmares, flashbacks, manipulation/gaslighting, torture, heavy suicidal ideation, heavy gore, and the constant stalker-like presence of a past abuser (Hallucifer, whose remarks about his time with Sam can sometimes border on sexual—basically, Sam’s dealing with literal PTSD from Hell). The "character death" warning applies only to characters that die in canon, aside from Crowley.

**APRIL 6, 2016** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE YARD**

A storm howls above South Dakota, and Singer's Salvage is smack in the middle of it. Wind throws rain against a dozen broken-down cars, lighting tinting the sky purple as thunder shakes the very earth. An old beige truck squeals to a halt in the driveway, kicking up mud and gravel. The headlights cut briefly through the sheeting rain before they go dark.

Out jumps a boy with a flashlight. He is already soaked, dark hair plastered to his face, eyes frightened. He is only sixteen. He rushes towards the darkened house. "Dean? Dean!"

In his haste, he doesn’t see the giant misshapen pawprints in the mud. The front door stands open, what's left of the screen door banging in the wind.

"Dean?" the boy calls again. He holds his flashlight in one hand while the other points a pistol through its beam. His hands stay steady, but his knuckles are white. "Sam? Bobby?"

The stench hits him the moment he steps inside, foul and overwhelming and undeniable: someone has died here. "Dean!" He drops his defensive stance as he rounds the corner, beam of the flashlight bouncing off splashes of blood, searching—

In the library, a body. Guts spilled out and dragged all over the room. A bloodied baseball cap near the door.

The boy lets out a choked noise, then turns and vomits. He is crying in earnest now. "Bobby, oh shit, oh no, no, no..." He backs away, sneakers leaving bloody footprints on the floor. "Dean!" he shouts. "Sam!" There's no one there. He rushes up and down the stairs; he checks every room. "Dean! Sam!" The house is empty.

"Dean," he says, hopeless. "Dean!"

No one answers.

Sam and Dean Winchester are gone.

 

 

* * *

# E N T E R   N I G H T

* * *

 

 

**JUNE 4, 2012** **  
** **CROWLEY'S LAB**

"Apparently," Castiel says, putting down the jar of monster blood, "we have a Judas in our midst."

Balthazar is a poor liar. He blinks, fidgets with his vessel's hands. "Holy hell," he says, a beat too late. "Who is it? I bet it's that—bloody little Cherub, isn't it—"

Face impassive, Castiel reaches for his blade. First Sam and Dean, and now this. Is there no one left he can trust?

But Balthazar's always been quick to see trouble coming; it's how he's stayed alive for so long. "You're going to _kill_ me?" he says. "Just like that? Not so much as a fare-thee-well?" Castiel makes the mistake of pausing, and Balthazar pushes: "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. That's what happened to Rachel, isn't it? When she found out about your dealings with devils?"

"She betrayed me!" says Castiel. "You all betrayed me!"

"I'm trying to _help_ you, Castiel!" Balthazar's knuckles are white, waiting for Castiel to deliver that final blow. "There's only so many friends you can cut down before you don't have any left."

He's just trying to save his own life, Castiel thinks hotly—the _coward_ —but he's not wrong. Castiel had more friends when he rebelled against all of Heaven than he does now.

"If I had any other option, I would take it." His vessel's throat is irritatingly tight; there isn’t much Castiel hates more than its physiological reactions to emotion. "Raphael will _kill us_ _all_. He'll restart the apocalypse, destroy everything Sam and Dean worked for—"

"Oh, I agree Raphael needs to be stopped," Balthazar says. "But opening Purgatory to get all those souls may very well end the planet, and how is that any better than letting Michael and Lucifer have it?"

"You don't know that will happen!"

"And you don't know it won't." Balthazar steps forward, fear momentarily forgotten. "Of course, you could stab me right now and go on your merry way. Open the gate, try to cram all those souls inside your broken vessel and pray you don’t find any nasty surprises. Strike down those who don’t blindly follow your orders, just as Raphael would, assuming you aren’t already dead or worse. Is that how you want this to go?"

"I will do what I must,” says Castiel, but his determination is wavering. It’s true his grace is already damaged, and without Jimmy Novak’s soul, this body may not be able to hold what Purgatory has to offer. "I’m willing to bear the cost.”

"But _you_ aren’t the only one to bear it!” Balthazar gestures at the sword. "You’ve already killed Rachel. You’re about to kill _me_. And did you know that woman Dean Winchester tried to save died too?”

"What?" says Castiel, badly thrown. "Lisa Braeden is dead?"

"I thought you knew." Balthazar folds his arms. "A demon ruined her body while she and the boy were Crowley’s prisoners. By the time the Winchesters thought to summon _me_ instead of _you_ , she was already gone.”

Dean loved her. Castiel spent an entire year watching the two of them in their domestic dances and he _knows_ Dean loved her, that’s why she and her son were in such danger in the first place, and now thanks to Castiel she’s just another entry in the long list of people Dean Winchester didn’t deserve to lose.

"How many more, Cas?” asks Balthazar quietly.

Castiel grabs him by the shoulders. Balthazar flinches, perhaps expecting a blow, but Castiel just hangs on. "What would you have me do?" he asks. "Tell me. Tell me there's another way and I'll take it. Do you think I _want_ to hurt my friends? Do you truly think—" His fingers curl.

"If I thought you were past reason, I'd've gone for my own blade by now," says Balthazar. He grips Castiel's shoulders in turn. "Listen. You have Heaven’s weapons, things that make the Staff of Moses look like a cheap parlor trick. Now is the time to _use_ them."

Castiel sags. "You know those can only be wielded by an archangel. I would die in the attempt, and if I die, there will be no one left to stand up to Raphael, and we're right back where we—"

"Moses was only a man," Balthazar returns. "Haven’t you read the gospels? Heaven wields its power through those who have God's favor, even the lowliest.” He's right up in Castiel's space now, still afraid but serious in a way he so rarely is. "You've come back from the dead twice now, Castiel. If there's anyone God favors, it's you."

Castiel closes his eyes. Turns his own gaze inward, as he does in prayer. How can he know which is the right path when God refuses to answer him?

"You know better than anyone that no ending is set in stone," says Balthazar. He touches the blade forgotten in Castiel’s hand. "Cas, I'm begging you. Let's tear up those pages one more time, hm?" His voice wavers. "If you're waiting for a sign—here I am."

So he is.

"The right path," Castiel murmurs, meeting Balthazar's eyes and seeing him anew. "And here I was expecting a burning bush."

"What?"

Castiel straightens. "Lay some devil's traps, and fast," he says, and sends a silent prayer of thanks to his Father, wherever He may be. "I have God’s weapons to prepare."

 

* * *

 

**DECEMBER 21, 2015** **  
** **THE PALO SANTO TREE**

Ben stares at the tree, the one Sam says is holy. It’s greener than most for the dead of winter, but it doesn't look different than any other tree on Bobby's property except for how all the other trees around this one are tipped over dead. Sam flinches when Ben reaches out to touch the trunk, but Ben doesn't feel anything except rough bark under his fingertips. "Is the wood magic?"

"It's called palo santo," Sam says, his own hands tucked firmly in his coat pockets. "Burns demons on contact, just like holy water. I thought you might want to take some for that bracelet you're working on."

Ben wants to reassure Sam that this tree won't hurt him, because Sam isn't a demon. It seems like the kind of thing Dean would say. But sometimes talking about that stuff sends Sam straight into a screaming nightmare, and he's already twitchier than usual; this is the first time since Ben got here that he's seen Sam leave the house.

"Cool," he says instead. It _is_ cool—with palo santo, plus the beads of silver and iron, he'll have a wearable monster-detector that’ll work on just about anything. "When did you guys plant it? I don't remember this being here last summer."

"We didn't," Sam says. "Palo santo is what happens when an angel dies, sort of a...living gravestone. The grace goes into the earth and things just grow."

_Angels_. Ben’s never met one in person. "Which angel made this one?” he asks, touching the tree again. "Was it Cas?"

Sam looks up sharply. "Did you see Castiel?"

"I—no,” says Ben, taken aback. "But isn’t he your friend?"

Friend isn’t quite the word he means. During the year that Sam was dead and Dean drifted through Ben and Lisa’s house like he was dead too, Ben sometimes heard him talking to empty rooms. _Cas_ seemed interchangeable with _you feathery bastard_ and it took Ben a while to figure out that this, for all the anger in Dean’s voice, was prayer; instead of _baruch atah Adonai_ it was _please give my brother back_. And here Sam is, damaged but alive. Surely that means someone upstairs is watching over them?

"This isn't Cas," says Sam, gesturing toward the tree. "There was another angel that used to visit us, but a couple months back something killed him right on our doorstep. I saw—" He swallows and doesn't finish the sentence.

Ben looks at the circle of uprooted trees around the palo santo, the way shadows seem to take the shape of wings. A cold wind rustles the branches. "But what could be strong enough to kill an angel?"

Sam stares at the sky, clear and full of stars. "There was this cloud," he says. He digs his thumb into the palm of his other hand, shoulders trembling. "It came down like demon smoke. I thought there were so many of them, but it was..."

Ben has to bite his tongue to keep from asking _what_ , what was it, what happened that has Sam shaking at the very thought of it?

Finally Sam blinks and looks at Ben again. "Take some palo santo," he instructs, putting his hands back in his pockets. "I just hope you aren't going to need it."

 

* * *

  

**NOVEMBER 1, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

"I don't see why Cas keeps sending him," Dean says, shuffling and re-shuffling the deck of cards. Poker stopped being a good distraction ten hands ago. "It's not like I'm gonna up and decide we can be besties again if Balthazar comes around often enough."

"Maybe," Bobby says, with an air of long-suffering, "the angels want to know about it if, oh I don’t know, there's an unusual burst of demonic activity that we can't figure out?"

"Can it," Dean snaps, with an alarmed glance out the window. Sam is still on Bobby’s front porch waiting for their feathery ambassador. For normal people, the first of the month means it’s time to pay the bills; in Dean's supernatural freak show of a retirement, the first of the month means _he's_ got to deal with _angels_.

"If Balthazar’s coming to earth so often, he might know what the demons are up to," Bobby says, leaning back in his chair. "And if the demons _are_ trying to pull something sneaky, don’t you think us keeping quiet about it is exactly what they'd want us to do?"

"No," Dean growls. "If the angels know something we don't, they can deal with it themselves. I am _done_ giving those bastards the opportunity to screw us over."

"Dean—"

"I said no!"

Bobby rolls his eyes and takes a swig of beer. Then, "Balthazar ought to have been here by now."

Dean grunts and glances out of the window again at Sam, alone in the cold, staring across the empty yard toward the last light of sunset. He looks like a walking invitation for trouble. "I'm gonna go check on him."

Bobby sighs. "Try not to worry too hard just yet, son."

"Night, Bobby." Dean drops the deck of cards and heads outside.

Sam blinks rapidly when the door opens, and Dean wonders if he was seeing something that isn’t there. "Hey.”

“Hey." Dean clears his throat. "Balthazar stood you up?"

"He always bitches when _I_ get out here late," Sam says, fidgeting. His breath comes out in misty puffs.

Dean bumps Sam's shoulder with his own. "We oughta get inside."

"What if he’s in trouble?" Sam says, because of course he’s more worried about Balthazar than himself. If anyone would go and make friends with an angel after what happened to him, it'd be Sam. "He might be hurt, or got caught on one of the wards or something—”

"If there’s trouble with the angels, all the more reason for us to stay out of it,” says Dean. "C’mon.”

"Dean, why do you always assume the worst—" Sam cuts himself off, probably realizing what a stupid question that's shaping up to be. Instead he says, "I saw something when I was digitizing the books today."

"I hope you were being careful." That's how Sam keeps himself busy now that he can’t hunt: typing up and scanning all those handwritten hunter's journals for the next generation. Dean, frankly, thinks that's way too much monster talk for someone with as many triggers as Sam’s got, but Bobby took Sam’s side and he had to give in.

Sam takes a deep breath. "Do you think this might have to do with that map of demon activity you’ve been putting together?”

" _Motherfucker_ ," Dean swears. His laptop has a password for a _reason._  "God damn it, Sam, what happened to you taking it easy?"

"It didn't hurt me!" Sam says. "I'm okay, Dean, I know it's slow but I think I'm getting better—"

"You're not okay!" Dean smacks his hand against the porch railing. "Cas put you in a _coma_ , Sam. You were dying!" His throat is tight. "All it takes is one slip and we'll both be right back where we started. You dead, and me—" _Back at the crossroads._ He doesn't say it. He doesn't have to.

Sam's eyes have gone soft. "It's not like I want to get hurt either. Hey." He grasps Dean's shoulder, briefly. "I'm being careful. I haven't bailed on you yet, have I?"

No, he hasn't. But there've been some close calls, times when Dean's had to pull the pistol out of Sam’s hand. He’s not letting his brother go out like that.

"I'm not trying to smother you, man," Dean says. "But I can't—if anything happened to you—" He stops again. "Sammy, let us handle the demons. God knows you've done enough." He closes his eyes briefly against the memory of Sam's face right before he fell. _It's okay, Dean. I got him_.

"Dean," Sam starts, like he's gearing up to dig in his heels on this one, but he's cut off by a distant _boom_. It sounds almost like thunder, but summer is long over and there’s no flash of lightning to explain the noise.

Dean squints out into the dark. "Did you hear that?"

Something massive and unidentifiable rises up behind the woods, blotting out the stars behind it, then swoops back down.

Sam grips the porch railing so hard his knuckles whiten. "Is that demon smoke?"

_Boom._ This one rattles every window in Bobby's house, close enough that Dean feels it in his feet. "Sam, get inside," he says, keeping his eyes on the treeline.

"Dean, what if that’s Balthazar? We have to—"

Something in the distance glows bright white and then fades behind the trees. The wind's starting to pick up. "I said get inside! Now!"

Bobby opens the front door. "What in the hell—"

"Both of you, get down!"

Too late. The light explodes—

 

* * *

 

**DECEMBER 20, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

Sam wakes up fighting, momentarily deaf and blind to the world around him. He thinks maybe he's screaming, but it doesn't matter because his mouth is full of acid and his skin is peeling, burning off, it hurts, it _hurts_ —

Hands on his shoulders and Sam flinches, but it's just Dean. This is the third time Sam's woken him up tonight. Sam grabs at Dean's wrist, feeling his muscles relax the slightest bit at the skin contact. Dean is real. Stone number one.

"—you're fine. Look at me. You're out, we got you out."

Sam blinks, hard, eyes jerking away from the shadow in the corner. Dean is real and that’s all that matters. He's on the floor next to the bed, half-tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. "Sorry," he pants. "I'm okay. I’ll just get up."

_Aw, come on, Sammy,_ Lucifer croons. _You’re gonna leave before the good part?_

Dean helps him to his feet. "Sam, you haven't had any sleep in like a week. You've gotta try and get in another nap."

Sam shudders. "I just need coffee."

He wishes Dean would take the opportunity to get some sleep himself, but it’s no good; when Sam goes down to the kitchen Dean is hot on his heels. His screaming probably woke up the whole damn house.

Sure enough, there's Ben curled on the couch, awake and on his iPad. "Hey," he says without looking up, completely unsurprised to see them.

"Hey," Sam replies guiltily. He tries to start coffee, but his hands are shaking so badly he spills the grounds. "Ah, shit."

Dean takes the coffee scoop out of his hands. "I'll clean it. Go sit down."

Sam doesn't want to sit; he wants to pace. He goes to the living room anyway, scrubbing his hands over his face. Is it so much to ask for just one night where his mind stays quiet?

And, well. He could have that, maybe, for a while, if he was willing to trust the same person who broke his wall in the first place. Ever since Balthazar died, Castiel has been appearing on the outskirts of the property every few weeks. Sam thought it was a hallucination at first, but somehow he can sense Cas arriving just like he felt it every time Balthazar touched down, and his curiosity got the better of him. They don't ever talk for long, but last time Cas hinted that there might be a way to stave off Sam's nightmares.

Dean doesn't trust Cas. Sam doesn't either. But he's so tired, and knowing Castiel has the power to bring this all to an end makes it that much harder to endure.

"Bad night, huh?" Ben says, patting the couch cushion beside him.

_I was quite enjoying it, myself._

When Sam gingerly sits down, the whole couch looks momentarily wreathed in flame. "Sorry I woke you," Sam says.

"Huh? Oh, you didn't. I'm _working_ ," Ben says, with importance.

"You been up all night?" Dean demands from the kitchen.

"It's vacation!"

"What the hell are you working on?"

Ben’s screen has fifty tabs of Google results on how to melt down metal into beads, and he immediately launches into a treatise about anti-monster accessories. Sam lets it wash over him, the enthusiastic chatter, the smell of coffee. Ben talks so much now that you'd never guess he was once incapable of speaking, trapped by nightmares of his mother’s death. Sam used to sit up with him then, too—uncertain as they were of each other, the long nights were better together than alone. His eyes start to close.

_He looks just like his dad, doesn’t he?_ says Lucifer, standing over Ben. _He’s going to die young._

Sam flinches. He gets to his feet and crosses to the coffeemaker again, catching Dean in a yawn so wide his jaw audibly cracks.

"Dean, you should go to bed,” murmurs Sam.

"Try soaking it in holy water first,” Dean calls back at Ben’s latest suggestion, then pulls down two mugs and starts to pour. "I’m fine, Sam. Just gotta get some coffee in me.”

Sam watches his hands on the coffee pot, quiet. He was getting better. Three long years and he'd scraped out a modicum of normality—all ruined in a single night. And no matter how long or hard he fights to keep a lid on it, he will always be that easy to break.

"You shouldn't have to do this," he says to Dean.

Dean's face tightens. "Neither should you, but newsflash: angels are douchebags!" He hands Sam his mug. "Least I can do is ride shotgun and keep your hands on the wheel."

That's how it is with them. Break the one, break the other. He'd do it for Dean, too, because there's _nothing_ he wouldn't do for Dean. And Dean deserves his brother to be whole.

Sam doesn't have to trust Castiel to let him help, right? Just a little. Just enough.

For Dean.

 

* * *

 

**NOVEMBER 1, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

The light explodes. Sam shields his eyes, but there’s no bracing himself against the shockwave: he and Bobby are both flung back, Bobby through the door, Sam against the wall. His ears are ringing. Something’s cracked, some failed safehold letting the light in, and he can no longer hide from the brightness—

"...am? Sam! Sammy!"

Dean's shaking his shoulder. Sam tries to twist out of his grip, eyes still closed; who know what he'll see if he opens them just now.

"Fine," he forces out, even though he’s not. "Dean."

"I’m here,” Dean says. "It’s just me. Can you stand? We gotta get inside."

Sam shakes his head to clear it. Taking it for a no, Dean scoops one arm under Sam’s and hauls him to his feet. Sam squints his eyes open, tries to get his legs to work.

"Bobby's out cold," Dean says, echoing in Sam’s ears. "Stay here with him, all right? I'm gonna go see what the hell happened."  

There's a blurred figure in the corner of the room that Sam jerks his eyes away from at once. He can't feel his body. That _light_ —

No. No. Eyes on the floor. Dean left him next to Bobby, so Sam searches for a pulse. Strong and steady. Good. He waits.

It is never good for him to be alone for too long.

_Dean sure has been gone a long time_ , whispers a voice in Sam’s head, easily slithering past all the defenses he’s tried to build against it. _Think he's okay out there? All on his lonesome?_

He gropes for his cell and dials Dean. It rings—from where Dean left it on the kitchen table.

"Shit," Sam says aloud, flinching when he realizes Lucifer echoed him.

_Maybe it feels like longer than it is. Dare you to look at the clock._

Sam does not look over at the clock. He's just gotta use his senses, remind himself of the here and now. He can hear the coffee pot ticking, smell the coffee as it brews. His jeans are rough against his hands—his hands. Sam finds his palm and digs in.

_If that thing killed a fully loaded angel, it's probably already picking poor Dean-o out of its teeth._

Sam climbs to his feet. "You stay put," he says to Bobby, who is still passed out on the rug. He’s probably still in better shape than Sam right now.

There's a spare angel sword stashed in the library, and Sam arms himself with that instead of his usual pistol. Harder to do yourself in with a blade, for one thing. Not impossible. But harder. Sam won't go far; just far enough to find his brother. He opens the front door and steps past the devil’s trap on the threshold.

"Dean?" His voice echoes strangely in the charged air. "Dean! Answer me!"

Silence.

Sam keeps going. The devastation from the explosion gets worse as he passes out of each circle of protection, going from downed tree limbs to just downed trees, knocked flat by some terrible force.

_Shouldn’t have come out here, Sammy._ Lucifer flashes into solidity in Sam’s peripheral vision, making him jump. _Who knows what could be waiting for a tasty morsel like you?_

That voice is a part of his own brain, Sam reminds himself. His instincts are telling him it could be dangerous to leave the house, and the message just got warped, that’s all. He's gotta find Dean.

"Sam! Over here!"

"Dean," Sam says, almost tripping over himself with relief. He breaks into a sprint.

There used to be a clearing up on this hill, and he's hit with the horribly familiar smell of sulfur and lightning as he picks his way forward through the mess. _Smells just like our cell, doesn't it?_ Sam hears a long pleased inhale, like some animal that’s just scented dinner. _Home sweet home._

He sees the wingprints first, scorched over the broken tree trunks, too big to look at all at once in the dark. And there's Balthazar's body, facedown in the dirt.

"Shit," Sam says, and kneels to inspect it. They hadn't _exactly_ been friends, he and Balthazar, but Sam would never have wished this on him. "Dean? Where are you? I found him."

_Aw. You mean you really thought that was Dean calling you?_

Sam makes the mistake of looking up. It can’t be Lucifer towering over him; he knows. He _knows_. But it’s impossible to see around the hallucination, those glowing eyes, the flames that have suddenly sprung up in the corners of his vision. His eyes are locked on the devil. He can't move.

Lucifer chuckles. _Oh, Sammy,_ he says again, but it's quiet this time, gleefully anticipatory the way he gets right before he's about to enjoy a good show. _You really shouldn't have come out here._

There's a hand on his wrist, icy. "Long time no see," he hears, and knows no more.

 

* * *

 

**NOVEMBER 1, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

Castiel is in Heaven when Balthazar dies; he feels it like a sword through his own chest. "Wait!" cries Hannah, but Castiel has already leapt into flight. His tattered wings strain as he urges them to go faster; he already knows he will be too late.  
  
The sky above Bobby Singer's home crackles with demonic energy. Castiel unsheathes his sword even before he's reached the ground, casting for its source, but his adversary excels at stealth. The only thing he finds when he lands is the empty vessel that used to hold Balthazar, the charred outline of wings spread wide beneath him.  
  
Once, after his own brief time in the body of Claire Novak, Castiel asked Balthazar who his vessel was. Whether the man had a family. "Only in pine boxes," Balthazar had answered, laughing, and told the story of how this fisherman prayed for salvation from a storm in 1821 and had been one with his celestial passenger ever since.  
  
"My friend," Castiel murmurs, crouching to touch the still-warm wound through Balthazar's heart—and that's when he realizes there's a second body in this clearing.  
  
"Get away from him!”  
  
Castiel is on his feet again in an instant, sword raised. He realizes this was exactly the wrong reaction when he sees Dean Winchester running toward him across the broken ground.  
  
"Sam? Sam!" Dean drops to his knees beside the fallen shape of his brother, hands frantic but tender as he searches for a pulse. Sam isn't dead, Castiel can sense that much, but what kind of damage his mind may have sustained is beyond his power to guess. When Castiel moves closer, he meets Dean's pistol aimed squarely at his forehead.  
  
"What the hell did you do?" Dean snarls.  
  
"I didn't do this," says Castiel, resheathing his blade, but Dean cuts him off.  
  
"Bullshit! I find you standing over your dead buddy and you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it? I saw that demon smoke!"  
  
"I don't consort with demons anymore," Castiel says, and his gaze skips to Balthazar's unmoving body. That dreaded tightness is back in his throat. "Dean, the fact that Sam was attacked right after Balthazar was killed—"  
  
"I don't care!" Dean stands, his gun not wavering in the slightest. "Even if you didn't do anything this time, you're still the reason he's like this. You're the one who broke his goddamn wall in the first place."  
  
In Dean’s eyes, Castiel is nothing but the sum of his mistakes. "Dean, listen to me. I can help Sam. But there are bigger forces at play here."  
  
"Don’t you goddamn touch him,” says Dean, just as he did three and a half years ago when Sam’s wall was newly broken and Castiel came here begging for forgiveness. "I don’t give a shit about bigger forces. You angels have been trying to drag us into your wars since day one, and it’s landed us in a world of hurt. Just leave us _alone_."  
  
Castiel fights to control his vessel's reactions. "I don't have anyone else."  
  
"Well, I guess you should have thought of that before you screwed us over, shouldn't you?" Dean's eyes are wet. He cocks his pistol. "Leave, Cas, before I punch you full of holes."  
  
That gun won't do any permanent damage, and they both know it, but the clench of Dean’s jaw says he doesn't care. Castiel is so very tired. "Telling me to leave won't keep Sam safe," he says. "I am not your enemy, Dean."  
  
Dean says, _"Go._ "  
  
Castiel takes flight. He lingers, invisible, long enough to see Dean drop his gun and scoop up his brother, painstakingly carrying Sam back to the house and its layers of magical protection. Castiel strengthens what wards he can and then leaves Sioux Falls, following the trail of hellfire to wherever it will lead next.  
  
How he longs for his garrison; how he wishes there were any other angels he could trust. But he's seen how many of his brethren would turn against him if they knew his true purpose. With Balthazar gone, and the Winchesters refusing to help or be helped, Castiel is well and truly on his own.

 

* * *

 

**DECEMBER 24, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

"I’m just saying, maybe you guys should start thinking outside the box!” Ben has been sanding his disc of palo santo for about an hour now, and it still isn’t a perfect circle. Debating with Dean makes the time go faster. "Like, there’s no reason a hula hoop full of salt wouldn’t _work_ , right? How many ghosts have summoned up some magical wind to ruin the salt circle right when you think it’s safe?”

"Hand me the broccoli,” says Dean, which Ben does. "Useful or not, two grown men can’t walk into a house carrying a hula hoop. It would look ridiculous.”

"Dean,” says Sam from behind his stack of books, "you once killed Tinkerbell in a microwave."

Ben blinks. It’s not that Sam isn’t _invited_ to join the conversation—Bobby’s been making plenty of editorial comments from the stove—it’s just that Ben didn’t think today was a day where Sam could track other people talking. He’s already startled twice just from the sound of Dean chopping vegetables, and the fact that they’re making vegetables at all is only because the smell of cooking meat is too much for him.

"That doesn’t count,” says Dean after a beat, but it’s clear that Sam’s response cheers him. "And hunters can totally think outside the box. Sammy, remember that town that rigged up a whole fire truck to shoot holy water?"

Sam’s head emerges long enough to smile at him. "I remember how mad you were that you didn’t get to try it."

"Dude, _awesome_ ,” Ben says—he’s been toying with the idea of putting holy water into a super soaker, but _fire trucks_. "I changed my mind. Can you get me one of those for Hanukkah?"

"They’re gonna have to get a little better at credit card fraud for that," says Bobby, swooping in to collect the broccoli from Dean’s cutting board. Whatever he’s cooking over there smells amazing. "Write a letter to Santa."

"You are not allowed to ask Santa." Dean holds up a finger, mock-stern, as Ben rolls his eyes and reminds Dean that he’s _Jewish_. "We had to hunt down a couple of Santas in, what, '07?"

"We killed two pagan gods with a pine tree," Sam corrects. He sounds sort of wistful. "That was the last Christmas before—before you—”

Sam’s voice dries up. In an instant, Dean has crossed the room to crouch beside him, one hand rubbing the back of Sam’s neck while the other gets pinched in Sam’s white-knuckle grip. "Hey, I’m right here,” Dean murmurs. "I came back. It’s okay.” Ben isn’t quite sure what they’re talking about, what memory set Sam off this time, but he knows it’s something just between the two of them. He goes back to sanding the palo santo.

Ben used to absolutely hate Sam Winchester. For one whole year Ben finally sort of had a dad, and with enough time they were even getting to the point where it didn't take half a bottle of whiskey to get him to sleep. They made a good team, Ben and his mom and Dean. Then it turned out that Sam wasn't really dead at all, and in two seconds flat Dean was back with his brother like Lisa and Ben never even existed. So yeah: Ben hated Sam.

Things changed after his mom died. The image of his mother’s eyes turning black, the feeling of her hand holding a knife against his throat, and the blood, the horrible warm blood on his hands as Dean drove them (not fast enough) to the hospital—the memory of that night took up so much space inside him that there wasn’t room for anything else. For months he didn’t speak a single word. Dean brought him to Bobby's and taught him how to shoot, how to protect himself so he'd never be that helpless again, but it was Sam who stayed up with Ben when he couldn’t sleep, silently sympathetic. No matter how bad Sam's own nightmares got, he always made sure Ben felt welcome here. After that, Ben's childish resentment melted away.

"I could use some help setting the table," Bobby says to Ben, drawing him out of his thoughts. By the time they finish laying out plates and silverware, Dean has soothed Sam back to lucidity.

"How bout some grub, huh?” says Dean, still holding Sam’s hand. "Bunch of rabbit food, just like you like."

"Wait,” says Sam. "I wanted to—where’s Ben?"

"Here,” Ben says. He trades glances with Dean, but neither seems to know what Sam wants. "I’m right here. Do you need something?"

Sam beckons him over. Ben leaves the palo santo well out of reach as he hesitantly moves towards them.

From the top of his pile, Sam draws out a leatherbound book, so old its seams are cracking, with a devil’s trap carved into the cover. "The first journal of Samuel Colt,” he says, and hands it to Ben. "Merry Christmas. Or, you know, happy Hanukkah."

"Oh my God." Ben handles the pages with an instinctive gentleness, thumbing through the stories that Dean tells like fairy tales. He’s seen a lot of old hunter lore, helping Sam to type up Bobby’s extensive collection, but nothing as legendary as this. "Seriously? You’re giving this to me? Holy shit!"

Sam smiles. "I’ve got the whole thing scanned and saved—one of the first ones I did, actually. So we don’t need the hard copy anymore."

"Dude.” Ben traces the five-pointed star with a fingertip. Samuel Colt touched this same leather. "Dude, Sam, this is _amazing_ , thank you—”

“You’ve earned it,” Sam says quietly, and Ben runs at him for a hug.

"Whenever you’re done,” Bobby says from the kitchen, "these veggies are getting cold."

They go to the table and settle in, warm and content while the wind blows outside. Ben’s brain can hardly keep up with his mouth, going over all the cool Samuel Colt facts he knows even though the people who taught them to him are sitting right at the table with him. "I'm gonna show Katie," he says, "and there's this guy Dustin at school who knows about monsters because he was kidnapped by the changelings too, I'm gonna show _him_ , and—" He sucks in a breath. "I should _upload it to the internet_. Dude, I could totally start a wiki!"

"A what?” says Bobby.

"You know, like Wikipedia but for hunters,” says Ben. "So other people can find all this information. Don’t you think?"

"Whoa, hold on,” Dean interrupts. "Do you know how much time we spend trying to keep people _away_ from this shit?"

"But it happens to them anyway,” Ben protests. "Monsters show up and start wrecking people’s lives, and hunters don’t always get there on time. People deserve to know what’s out there."

Bobby spears a piece of broccoli. "Boy, most people won’t believe it’s a monster until they’re staring it in the teeth."

"Or worse,” says Dean, "they’ll think it’s real and assume that because they read something about it once, they know how to handle it. The last thing we want is a bunch of kids running in half-cocked and getting themselves killed."

Ben looks down at his plate. "Maybe the kids would just feel safer if they knew how to fight back."

The others get quiet. Dean didn’t want to make a hunter out of Ben, he knows that, but Ben is no longer the eager eleven-year-old who stumbled across a shotgun in the garage. His mom died and Ben couldn’t do anything, and he didn’t have any idea how to stop it from happening to everyone else he loved. That helplessness paralyzed him with fear. If the Winchesters hadn’t brought him here and taught him that monsters can be beaten, Ben might never have started talking again.

"Ben’s right,” Sam says after a moment. "The supernatural can happen to anyone, whether they’re prepared or not. Our jobs would get a lot easier if more people knew what they were up against."

"Or harder,” Dean mutters, but he nudges Sam with his elbow. "Really? You want the whole world reading about the crazy shit Colt got up to?"

"Hey, I just wanted to use the search function instead of flipping through books for ten hours,” Sam says. "But if I’m doing all that typing anyway, might as well give other hunters the chance to get their information straight from the source."

Ben grins, and Sam sends him a quick wink. No, he doesn’t hate Sam at all.

 

* * *

 

**DECEMBER 24 2015** **  
** **THE PALO SANTO TREE**

Castiel had intended to visit the Winchesters once a month, as Balthazar had, just to ensure nothing else put them in danger. He hadn't anticipated that Sam catch him out the first time he tried, or that even with the psychic damage radiating off him in waves, Sam would offer his hesitant condolences before fleeing back to the house.

Unsure how Dean might react, Castiel didn't linger. But he did find himself back on Bobby Singer's property a week later. And again two weeks after that.

As December draws to an end, Castiel flies again to South Dakota. He lands in the clearing where every living thing has been blasted down—everything except the new wych elm in the center of the destruction, green and improbable and humming with grace. Scattered around its roots are the ashes of Balthazar's vessel, the human soul inside it long gone by the time Castiel struck a match and set it to flame. He would have liked to put the body to rest with its family, but he never knew their names. No doubt their pine boxes have long since turned to dust.

He supposes that pyre was his first funeral. It's far from the first time he's mourned a fallen comrade, but until now Castiel has never had both the desire and opportunity to dispose of a loved one's body with care and dignity. Balthazar was the only angel he could have called friend instead of follower, and now he’s dead.

Castiel rests his forehead on the tree's rough bark. Everything hurts. His wings are only now recovering from his most recent battle, and Heaven's healing power leaks slowly but surely from his fractured grace with every minute he spends on earth.

"I don't know what to do," he says quietly. It's not a prayer, and of course he isn't talking to Balthazar; despite the holiness that lingers in this tree, the being who was his friend no longer exists. Still, plaintive, he says it again: "I don't know what to do."

Then, from the direction of the house, he senses Sam Winchester approaching.

At his full strength, Castiel would have been aware of every living thing in a ten-mile radius; at one time none of God's creatures could escape his notice. Now the only reason he can feel Sam at all is thanks to the shard of Castiel's own grace lodged somewhere under Sam's ribs. Yet another of his failings come to haunt him. Eventually, Castiel's human ears pick up the sound of frost crunching underfoot.

"Hello, Sam," he says.

Sam shifts on the frozen ground. "I wanted to talk to you."

Castiel looks up. "Has something gone wrong?"

"No, no." Sam laughs, a tired thing. "Well, no more so than usual.” His eyes track toward something Castiel can’t see. "But. Last time, you said you might be able to help me?"

A spark of hope blooms in Castiel’s chest. He knows that Dean considers him a traitor of the lowest kind, that he holds Castiel responsible for every terrible thing his brother has had to endure, but Castiel still yearns for the camaraderie the three of them once shared. Without Balthazar to offer a kind word or a well-timed joke, the past two months have been very lonely indeed.

"I believe I can shore up the damage caused by your time in Hell,” Castiel says. "It wouldn’t be permanent, and it wouldn’t be as durable as the wall that Death constructed for you, but it might help.”

Sam swallows. He digs his right thumb into his left palm, a gesture Castiel has seen all too often these last three years. Finally he whispers, "How?”

Castiel takes a very careful step towards him. "When you first reemerged from the Cage, your body had been separated from your soul. I searched you, metaphysically, to verify that, but I—wasn’t as careful as I should have been.”

"What? What is that supposed to mean?"

He winces. "My grace is damaged, and has been for some time. When I examined the place where your soul used to be, I accidentally left a small part of myself behind.”

Sam looks down at himself, horrified, though of course his senses can’t perceive the tiny glow that Castiel feels there. "I have grace in me?” He wraps his arms around his chest. "Did—is Lucifer's—"

"Only mine,” Castiel promises. "I assure you it was unintentional. I can't remove the grace, not with this vessel, but I still exert some influence over it. I can use it to strengthen the barrier between your conscious mind and your memories of Hell.”

For a long time Sam doesn't say anything, staring at the leaves of Balthazar's wych elm rustling in the wind. Finally he turns back to Castiel. "Dean says we can't trust you."

Castiel's hands clench without his permission. "Sam—"

"And I can't argue with him," Sam interrupts, "because I don't remember anything about what happened. We got to that warehouse, and I saw you there, and then there was this bright light and next thing I know I've just woken up from a months-long coma."

"I _never_ wanted to harm you," says Castiel. "You and your brother arrived at exactly the wrong time, and with your wall already so fragile—"

"Then what did you want?” Sam moves closer, challenging, bringing the sudden awareness of how large his body is compared to Castiel’s vessel. "If you’re offering to fix me, I want to know how I got so broken. What, exactly, did you do to me?"

 

* * *

 

**JUNE 4, 2012** **  
** **CROWLEY'S LAB**

Balthazar calls to Castiel while he's in Heaven, warning him of the demons that swarmed the laboratory only moments after he left. Castiel readies every weapon within reach and flies back, praying they’ll be enough—he was counting on using these weapons on _Raphael,_  not Crowley. But when he lands, he sees both his enemies shoulder to shoulder, facing Balthazar, who clutches the jar of Purgatory blood with white knuckles.

"Castiel," Raphael greets. "How good of you to join us."

Castiel stands at Balthazar's side. "What is this?"

"Exactly what it looks like," Crowley says with a smirk. "Raphael has offered me protection against all comers."

"In exchange for what?"

"Purgatory," Balthazar says. His terror is plain to see, even on human features. "They're going to open the gate together."

"Consorting with demons?" Castiel says to Raphael. "I thought that was beneath you." He's buying time, thinking fast. Thanks to Balthazar, the Winchesters and Bobby are no doubt on their way. Castiel hoped he'd be able to explain that he'd had a change of heart, but there won't be time for that now.

"Heard _you_ were doing it," Raphael replies. "Sounded like fun." He tuts, a new body this time, a different tongue. "Castiel. You really think I'd let _you_ take in that many souls? With that kind of power, I can open the Cage and free our brothers. End this world as it was always meant to end."

"That leaves you with two options, mate," Crowley adds. "Give us the jar, or die."

There's nothing else for it. "Give me the blood," he tells Balthazar.

"Cas," Balthazar hisses. " _No_."

"It's all right," he says. Facial movements are not his forte, but he tries to tell Balthazar with expression alone that he has no intention of handing it over. And Balthazar trusts him; he lets go.

For a moment Castiel is tempted to do exactly what he was planning before Balthazar talked him out of it. He _could_ flee with this blood and do the ritual elsewhere. He could take all the souls Purgatory has to offer, become more powerful than anyone but God.

But Sam and Dean would rise against him eventually. He knows they would. They've taken down more impressive foes with worse odds; it's what they _do_. And Castiel does not want to fight any more of his friends.

He really would rather die.

"Take care of them for me, if you can," he says to Balthazar, still looking at the jar. And before anyone can stop him, he hurls it at their feet and sets the smashed remains aflame.

What happens next all goes very quickly, though when he recalls it weeks and months and years later it will crawl by in slow motion, inevitable and agonizing. Raphael and Crowley spend a precious few seconds gaping at the mess on the floor, which gives Castiel time to raise his right hand and unleash the weapons. 

Then the door of the laboratory slams open. It's Bobby and the Winchesters, angel swords in hand. Castiel shouts "Run!" in the split second he has left, because he _must_ be faster than Raphael, he cannot watch them die. And the wrath of Heaven comes forth to strike down his enemies—

 

* * *

 

**DECEMBER 24, 2015** **  
** **THE PALO SANTO TREE**

"So you weren’t aiming for us at all," Sam says. After learning that he witnessed all of Heaven’s considerable firepower focused on a single point, he’s surprised his coma didn’t last longer. "And it worked? You beat Raphael?"

"He and Crowley were both destroyed by the blast,” Cas confirms. "But I very nearly killed all the rest of you, too. Dean’s anger is entirely understandable."

"There’s a big difference between taking someone out on purpose and accidentally catching them in the crossfire,” Sam argues, though he isn’t sure his brother would make the same distinction. Dean has always cared more about the ends than the means. "Besides, you got us out in time, right? Bobby says we ended up in a field two miles away."

"That was Balthazar," Castiel corrects. He reaches out to rest a hand on the tree beside him, and Sam hears a faint chime that doesn’t seem to pass through his ears. "Balthazar was a good friend—very much in spite of himself. He took you in the instant before the weapons went off. When he came back for me, I was..." Cas hesitates. "Wounded. Without his help, I wouldn’t have made it back to Heaven."

Sam lets out a breath. Never in all his visits did Balthazar mention that Sam and Dean and Bobby owed him their lives—and Cas too, from the sound of it. Sam looks around at the uprooted trees and fallen branches scattered in every direction around this clearing. "And now he’s gone."

The lines of Castiel’s face tighten. "Yes. The tree is all that remains."

_Wondering what kind of tree I would've made?_ Lucifer whispers, blowing in Sam's ear _. But you didn't kill me, did you? You can't. I'm still here, Sam, and your little broken angel can promise anything he likes but I always come back in the end. I'll always be right here, waiting for you._

"Sorry,” Sam says, a little too loud to cover Lucifer’s voice. "I didn’t know he did that for us. I’m sorry.” He shoves his hands in his pockets not to give himself away and clears his throat. "I saw a lot of demon smoke, right before it happened. Do you know what it was that killed him?"

A gust of wind rustles the tree’s branches, and Sam hears another faint chime, the echoes of an angel that isn’t there anymore. Castiel isn’t looking at him. "Now may not be the best time to discuss it."

"Look, whatever it was, it attacked me too,” says Sam. "I deserve to know.”

Castiel takes a breath and lets it out very slowly. "This was not an attack on Balthazar, Sam,” he says. "I believe the true target of this operation was you.”

_It was always going to be you._

Sam feels as though he's been kicked in the chest. The devil laughs, from somewhere in the trees. "What?"

"For a brief time," Castiel says, "you and Lucifer were one. To contact Lucifer inside the Cage, as Azazel did at St. Mary's Convent in 1972, requires a series of sacrifices over a period of years. But for someone who needs to know what Lucifer knows in a hurry, there is a second-best option."

Sam’s going to throw up. "But he’s not real,” he says. "Lucifer is still trapped in the Cage, Cas, he’s not—he’s not real!”

"Lucifer is gone," Castiel assures him, and the Lucifer still very much here with Sam laughs again. "There's none of his grace left inside you, not like mine. But you have memories of his memories. They're very faint, impossible for you to access on your own, but if someone with power dug deep enough..."

They'd find whatever they needed, and destroy in an instant what sanity he's spent three and a half years clawing his way back to. Sam curls his fingers into his hair and holds on. "Who was digging around in my head, Cas?"

"The demon who claimed power after I killed Crowley, and crowned herself the Queen of Hell," Castiel says. He meets Sam's eyes, regretful. "You and Dean will remember her as Meg."

 

* * *

  

**NOVEMBER 1, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

Clawing her way to the top has never been something Meg is interested in. She’s a brilliant lieutenant and loyal to the death once she’s found a cause to fight for, but leading one herself? Not so much. Her skills lie in the gritty tactics necessary for survival, not grand strategies or sweeping visions; she’s not one to touch the hearts of men.

Well. Not without being wrist-deep in their chest cavities, anyway.  
  
But even before Meg ascended the throne, something inside her changed, some unknown wellspring of fire that's been burning since the first time she felt Lucifer walk the earth. For the first time in centuries she’s not just surviving: she slaughters, she thrives, she _wins_. It's how she grabbed Hell's throne and kept it; it's how she could fight an angel and walk out unscathed. And no one can tell her where it comes from, or why.

So yes, she may have a legion of demons at her command, but this mission is personal. If all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men can't find the answer, it's time to go further up the chain of command. And that brings her to South Dakota and this broken man lying unconscious in the dirt.

It still astounds her that she once wore Sam Winchester's body herself—that she’s shared a meatsuit with _Lucifer_. But that's why she's here, isn't it? For a few glorious minutes Sam and Lucifer were one, imprinting Sam's mind with the echo of everything Lucifer is—and more importantly, everything he knew. Sam's human brain can't parse all that information, but that memory of a memory is still in there, waiting for someone like Meg to dig it out.    
  
She pats Sam’s ridiculous hair. "This won't hurt a bit," she says, and funnels into smoke.

But something rebuffs her before she can fully enter Sam's body, a force bright and electric and entirely inhuman. Meg hisses and draws back, her host body reforming around her. How did Sam come to have grace inside him? Even she can’t exist in a body next to _that_.

No matter. Meg was one of the few to train under the Knights of Hell, and that means she knows how to get what she wants from a body that won't let her in. She leans in, mouth open, and stops a few inches short of Sam’s face, sending out the tiniest piece of herself to slip under his eyelids and show her what's going on in that oversized brain.

Dual awareness will never stop being weird. She can feel her own essence, and see out of her host's eyes, but at the same time she’s bracing herself for the shiny-pure soul that fought against her so hard the last time she was here. When Meg’s perception settles, she's standing in tall dry grass that ripples in the sulfur-scented wind, dark wandering silhouettes barely visible against the deep blood-red of the sky. Something huge and jagged juts up out of the ground. For a moment everything is very still.

This is even worse than she thought. It's dark inside Sam Winchester's soul.

Then there's a sound like a thunderclap and the ground heaves beneath her feet. Around her, the shadows all stumble off their mysterious paths. She hears a child sobbing somewhere in the dark. That jagged thing the distance—it might once have been a wall—comes further apart, piece after piece crashing to the ground. The sky’s faint red light flickers dangerously.

Time to find Lucifer and get the hell out of here. Meg picks her way across the unsteady ground to the nearest shadow and turns it to face her. It's Sam-shaped, younger than the version outside, but its teeth are bared and its eyes demon-black. "It's a prison,” Sam’s voice snarls, "made of bone and flesh and blood and fear. And _you_ sent me back there!"

"What the _hell_ ," Meg hisses, and lets go. She doesn’t understand why the words sound so familiar until she sees the brand, the binding link that _she_ put on that arm to keep herself in Sam’s body. She’s looking at the memory of herself. And if the echo of Meg is here, then Lucifer's must be too.

One of the shadows glances over at her: little-boy Sam, clutching a parcel in his hand. "Dad lied to me. I want you to have it." Another shadow, twenty-two with floppy hair, passes by on her other side. "I have these nightmares. And sometimes—they come true." She wheels around. Another Sam on his knees, black veins spreading over his face, screaming: "Dean! Let me out of here! Let me out! Dean!"

Meg doesn't spook easily, but this is _weird_. It's impossible to break a soul, everyone knows that; it'd be easier to split an atom with a butterknife. No one's head should look like this.

A deep sigh comes from behind her. Meg turns.

"Relax," says Sam, this one broad-shouldered with a firm jawline. He must be recent. "We're just fragments. When the wall fell, Sam's soul had nothing to protect it anymore." He rolls his eyes. "Anything reminds him too much of his archangel prison buddies and Sammy just goes all to pieces." As if to prove his point, the ground rumbles dangerously again. Another chunk topples off the ruined wall.

"And which piece are you, exactly?" Meg asks, wary. She doesn't have much time. "Why aren't you stuck in a loop like them?"

This Sam smiles. "I'm not like them at all. I was the Sam _without_ a soul. I’ve got nothing to break."

Meg watches the sky sputtering above them. "I don’t know how much good that’ll do you if you’re stuck in here when the volcano blows. What say you help me find what I’m looking for and I’ll be on my way?”

The shadow’s eyes narrow. "You want to find the real Sam?” He points beyond the pieces of the wall, where the thin red light goes out entirely. "That way. The Cage. Where else would he be?"

The Cage. Where Lucifer is waiting for her. "Nice doing business with you,” Meg says, and leaves as fast as she can.

The quakes come without warning. Meg’s not fool enough to touch any of those shards of the wall sticking out of the grass, but it’s hard to keep her footing, hard to stay moving in the right direction. To make matters worse, that little piece of grace that kept her from fully possessing Sam seems to be following her, shining even more brightly when she gets close. Meg hisses as the light hits her skin. It’s _familiar_ —Castiel's, she’d bet anything. "Messy, messy," she mutters, and gives it a wide berth.

Once Meg crosses the last of the wall, the sky gives way to absolute blackness save for a single spark in the distance. Were Meg able to feel, she knows she would be frozen to the bone. She recognizes this place; she spent decades of Hell-time studying it from the outside. This is the Lightbringer's Cage.

Like a camera lens zooming in, the spark rushes towards her until an endless wall of flames fills her vision. Behind the fire: bars, chains upon chains, and six hundred and sixty-six locks to hold the Cage closed. Many are broken, most by her own hand.

"Lucifer," she breathes, and pushes forward heedless of the flames. Fire, her old friend—it will not hurt her here.

Being inside the Cage is like standing in the eye of a hurricane. Two enormous shapes, incomprehensible even to her own mind, circle in the void above her, bleeding malice. The first has wings made of a hundred thousand quivering hands reaching out from a body with too many eyes. The second form is an undulating mass of razorblades and barbed wire and silvery scales, each engraved with tiny ticking clockwork, each razor-sharp. There's another Sam, bleeding and broken, curled around himself on the parched bedrock below. His screams are silent; she couldn't hear them anyway above the clash as the two shapes come together. Lucifer and Michael, still fighting after all this time.

Meg trembles. Even as a memory, the power of Lucifer's true form overwhelms her.

"Lucifer!" she calls. "Morningstar!"

He turns toward her, the attention terrifying and blinding, like being caught in a floodlight. Immediately his brother swoops in for the kill. With a shriek of grating metal and crunching bone, the angels slice into each other with a viciousness Meg has rarely seen even in all her time in Hell.

"Listen to me," she implores; she doesn't have long left. "I've come to get you out of here."

The fighting stops. The Cage falls silent, save for the roar of the fire. She can almost hear Sam sobbing.

It's a memory, Meg tells herself as the indefinable thing that is Lucifer lowers itself to the ground, closer and closer to her, beginning to glow. She closes her eyes. Nothing here is real. Sam screams. Then—

"My child." Meg's eyes pop open. The bloody, writhing Sam on the ground now stands before her, radiant and whole. "You've come a long way for me."

"Lucifer,” she breathes. She remembers when he walked the earth, remembers the awe of his sheer presence, but she never saw him like this. His true vessel. "I’m going to free you," Meg promises, and she means every word. "You’re better than this, you’re _strong,_ not some animal to be locked up for eternity when you did nothing to be punished for—" She forces herself quiet; that’s not why she’s here. "But there’s something wrong.”

"Cold feet?" Lucifer asks, smiling gently.

" _Never_." Meg raises a hand to her sternum, looking her creator in the eye. "I just have these—holes. Blank spaces where I don’t know where I was or what I was doing. I know I went to earth and I know I had a job to do, but I can’t remember what it was. I don’t know if I completed my mission." She wants to tell him about the strange call she feels sometimes, the certainty that someone is searching for her, but there’s no time. "I don’t ask for myself; I ask because I know—I _know_ that there’s something I’ve lost, and without it, I won’t be able to open the Cage."

Lucifer lifts a hand to stroke her hair away from her eyes. "I know what it is."

"Please." Meg is desperate, _desperate_. "Please, tell me where I can find it, let me help you—”

His smile is so sad. "My brave girl." Then he cups her face in his hands, leans in, and whispers the secret in her ear.

Tears prick her eyes. There are footsteps outside in the real world, Dean calling for his brother. She's running out of time, and this Lucifer is not real, but she can hardly bear to leave him.

"One more thing." She grabs at his wrists, tears still hot on her face. "Am I on the right path? If all the seals are broken—can I truly set you free?"

His thumbs brush away her sadness. "Of course. My precious, precious child: of course you can. Not even this cage can hold me forever." His eyes seem to glow; his tone turns to steel. "I'm the _devil_. And I always come back in the end."


	2. Chapter 2

**DECEMBER 24, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE YARD**

Sometimes Sam wanders off by himself. Dean knows it can get claustrophobic being in the house all the time, knows the grounds are warded almost as strong as the house, but still the longer Sam's out of sight the more Dean's hands start to itch. It's only been a month since something blew in and crushed all the progress Sam had made towards his sanity. They have no way to know when it might come back.

Sam is upright when Dean finds him, which makes a drastic improvement over last time, but he's also with Castiel, both silhouetted against the dusting of snow on the ground.  

Dean feels his pulse spike. "Hey!" Wishing for a sword, he stalks over half a dozen downed trees and straight up to Castiel to come between him and Sam. "What did I _fucking_ tell you, you son of a bitch—"

"Dean, wait," Sam protests, grabbing at his arm. Dean shakes him off. "Dean! He's here to help!"

"Help himself, maybe," Dean growls, eyes locked squarely on Castiel. "What's he want?"

"It’s not what I—" Castiel starts, and Dean snaps, "Not asking you!"

So Sam tells him. Sam tells him everything: that Castiel never meant to break Sam's wall; that Heaven's weapons were the only way to take out Raphael and Crowley. Sam tells him it was Meg who attacked them that night in November and killed Balthazar in the process. She's the Queen of Hell now, apparently. And if she gets what she wants—what Cas has been fighting to stop all this time—she's gonna break every last seal on the Cage and set Lucifer free for good.

It’s a lot to take in, is the point, and Dean doesn’t feel any less like punching someone when Sam is done talking.

"But the last seal was Lilith," he says. "She was the key, remember? We did this song and dance a couple of seasons ago and she can't get ganked twice. Game over, right?"

"There are no rules anymore," says Cas. He seems indifferent to the cold, which is an insult to Dean’s numb fingers. "What is, is. The Cage is held shut by the seals. Without them, the Cage may open. And Lucifer would be free with nowhere to trap him again."

"It'll work."

Dean and Cas both turn to Sam, who’s digging into the palm of one hand with the other, face colorless in the moonlight, eyes fixed on the ground like they always are right before a bad moment. His voice hitches when he speaks again.

"It's—it's going to work, Dean. If you could hear how happy he is right now—"

"Sam, he's not real." Dean moves closer, tugging Sam's hands apart, taking up his whole field of vision. "It doesn't matter what that douchebag thinks. He's only in your head."

"But my head still has everything he knew tucked away in there somewhere. Memories of memories." Sam's eyes are red-rimmed and bleak. "Right, Cas? That's why Meg came after me. She wanted to know she could do it."

Castiel's nod is like a death sentence. "There are fewer than a hundred seals still intact." He looks at Dean, an unasked question in the tilt of his head.

"Absolutely not." Dean realizes he's still holding Sam's hands and lets go. "We are _not_ getting involved with this again. Clean up your own messes for once."

"I am _trying_ ," Cas snaps. "I'm only one angel, there are limits to my capacity—"

"What happened to being God's chosen, huh? All those followers you had hanging off you?" Dean crosses his arms. "I seem to remember you being too busy to take _our_ calls."

"Balthazar is dead," says Cas. "And if I tell the other angels what Meg intends, some of them may well try to help her succeed. I have no one else to ask."

In Dean's memory, an archangel shouts, _I just want it to be over._

"You got no right," Dean says, deadly quiet. He points back toward Bobby’s house, the only heat or light for miles around. "After everything you did—I got a kid back in that house who watched his mom _die_ because of you and Crowley! Sam's lucky he can even be _outside_ right now. And you're asking us to _help_ you?"

"He can heal me," says Sam.

Dean jerks around to look at him. "What?"

"Temporarily," Cas cuts in. "I can't promise miracles, I don't have that kind of power, but I believe I can shield Sam from some of the worst effects."

"Effects that _you_ caused," Dean begins, until Sam puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Dean. Please don't make this difficult?"

Dean draws himself up, prepared to be affronted, but Sam just gives him that pleading look he's been weak to since he was four years old.

"It's my choice, Dean," Sam says. "And I want Cas to fix me, because I want to fight. I can't let him get out again."

Dean's heart breaks a little. "Don't you think you've done enough?"

"All of it will be for nothing if Meg opens that Cage," Sam says. "And it's not just gonna go away if we bury our heads in the sand. It'll find us sooner or later; it always does. And I can't—I don't want—"

Because if Meg does pop that box, the devil's gonna need a body. And Sam will be his very first stop.

"We'll leave," Dean says. "Just take the car and go—"

"Where?" Sam asks. Like he's already thought through every option and he's just waiting for Dean to come to the same terrible conclusion. "If the Cage opens, nowhere will be safe from him. He'll find me. He'll—" Sam's eyes slam shut. His shoulders start trembling, shivers wracking his whole body, and he's biting his lip so hard it turns white.

"Sammy, hey." Dean gets his hands back on Sam quick as he can, one at the back of his neck, the other on his shoulder. Sam flinches, but Dean doesn't let go, just ducks right into where Sam's line of vision will be when he opens his eyes. "It's just me," he says, keeping his voice calm and quiet. "You're in Bobby's yard, by this stupid friggin' tree, and he's not real."

"Dean?" Sam says, like he's got to fight to find the name.

"Yeah, I'm here," Dean says. "I'm right here."

"Sam," says Cas, his voice so low that maybe neither of them were supposed to hear it. "You don't deserve this."

Dean huffs, breath fogging in the air. His little brother saved the world, and he doesn't deserve _any_ of the shit he's gotten for it. So—so if there's a chance that someone could take that pain away, even for a little while, Dean isn’t going to refuse no matter who's offering. He helps Sam stand upright again and then, reluctantly, jerks his head at Cas to come closer.

"This is for Sam," he says roughly, keeping one hand on Sam's sleeve. "This doesn't mean I forgive you."

Cas clenches his jaw, but he nods. "Sam? Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." Sam shakes the hair back off his face. "I mean, it's not like you can make it any worse, right?"

Castiel raises two fingers to touch Sam's forehead. Light shines behind Sam’s eyelids, very briefly, and Dean holds his breath—

 

* * *

 

 **DECEMBER 22, 2015** **  
** **STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA**

Reapers are so easy to catch. They’re like lemmings: when one falls, another will come to fill the gap, even if that means walking into their own doom. The job comes before everything. It makes a certain sort of sense, Meg supposes, that these creatures would be unafraid of death.

No, the hard part of _this_ seal was getting her hands on Death's scythe, which he only loans out to his reapers for very special cases. She'd had to keep her eye on natural disasters for _years_. Now, finally, everything is set: sacrifices ready to go, solstice moon on the rise, the church’s perimeter warded and guarded—but not too well. She’s planning to kill more than just reapers today. All she has to do now is set the trap.

Carefully, Meg begins to pour her precious supply of holy oil at strategic points around the chapel. The smell of it burns her nose, but it’s good to have something to do with her hands. Ever since she spoke to Lucifer she's been off her game, distracted. What he told her...

She hasn’t had reason to think about family for a very long time. Her father and brother are both dead for good, destroyed by Dean Winchester and that damn gun of his. Meg had to carry on Azazel’s crusade without him, and a small cowardly part of her is glad he can never see the mess she made of things.

And until now, he was the only one of her family that had ever mattered to her. She doesn’t much miss her brother—he _shot_ her, after all, and if he’d been holding the real Colt at the time, Meg would have been permanently obliterated just like he was. Tom found it endlessly amusing that she only ever possessed female bodies. Every meatsuit she chose was named Margaret—or, as the decades rolled by, Meg—but he refused to call her by any name but the one she was saddled with at birth.

Now that she's Queen, _everyone_ has to call her Meg.

Meg finishes pouring the oil by the high arched doors and between mahogany pews, then double-checks her belt. Death's scythe and Balthazar’s angel sword are both securely within reach. She has nothing to worry about—even slippery as Castiel is, he's not strong enough to kill her. And now, thanks to Lucifer, she knows why.

 _You have a son_.

A cambion. Hell’s secret weapon, the atomic bomb that was supposed to wipe out the armies of Heaven, and apparently Meg herself was the demon who sired it. So why can’t she _remember_?

The reapers stare at her as she paces, not judgmental or afraid, but not particularly impressed, either. Moonlight creeps over the pews, colored by stained glass.

Having a child isn’t something you just _forget._ For nine months she carried him in her womb—well, all right, technically the womb belonged to her meatsuit, but Meg has craved that chance since long before she became a demon and now the entire experience is lost to her. Maybe if she’d ever been a mother when she was human, if she’d been born in a body that even had the right _parts_ for giving birth, she would have recognized the itch in the back of her mind for what it was. Her _son_.

She doesn't even know his name. Someone took that from her. And when Meg finds out who, she's going to tear them into so many pieces they might as well have never existed.

It makes her mission all the more important. Lucifer, the real Lucifer, could reunite them. He would want to find the cambion more than anyone, wouldn't he? In her flightier moments, Meg imagines he might even grant her a boon for freeing him, though to see him again would be a gift in itself. Lucifer trusted Meg enough to bring the cambion into the world; surely he’ll realize they belong together.

On the edges of her perception there's a faint buzz. Meg grins at the bound reapers, flicking her eyes to black. "Showtime."

Castiel is cutting it close; there's only fifteen minutes or so until the moon hits its apex. Smart boy. But he's like her, isn't he—an underdog who learned to fight smart and fight dirty because he couldn't rely on brute strength, a tactical thinker reluctantly pushed beyond his station because needs must. He knows all he has to do is keep her busy until after the window for the ritual has passed. Even if he can't steal the scythe, even if he can't free the reapers, even if he can't even hurt her, this seal would be safe for another six months. Cas learned survival the hard way, just like her. He _could_ do it.

If his only friend wasn't so many ashes in Bobby Singer's backyard.

He's getting closer. Meg strains to hear, but he’s silent as he kills her guards. His grace is all duct tape and superglue, so weak Meg can barely feel him, and maybe he was counting on slipping under her radar but she's too strong for that now. Somewhere her son has been holding back his own power for years, saving it all for her.

When Castiel is very close, Meg lights the fire around the reapers and makes a show of checking her watch.

He shatters every window with his arrival, melodramatic as always, and grabs Meg’s neck with a palm glowing grace-bright. "Hi," he pants, pleased with himself. Poor Castiel; he thinks he's surprised her. She grabs at his hand when it snakes towards the scythe on her belt.  

"Clarence," she chides, mock-serious. "You know I'm not that kinda girl."

And with Balthazar’s sword, she slams the blade straight through his wing and into the nearest wooden pew.

He howls in agony, and likely in shock; were she a normal demon, her host's eyes wouldn't be able to perceive the shifting plane of existence where his wings hide. His tattered wing strains against the blade, feathers falling out, charred black with hellfire. He has underestimated her twice today.

"You stay right there, sugarlumps," she says. She'll have to be fast—there's no holy oil where she's pinned him, and the pain might not stop him from yanking himself loose. At least the broken wing will slow down his getaway.

The incantation rolls off her tongue easily as she pulls out Death’s scythe and turns to the reapers.

"No!" Castiel shouts, uselessly: she cuts the first reaper’s throat without so much as a token struggle. The second one puts up a fight, but he's bound, and there _is_ no fighting her like this. She makes the kill just as the moon reaches its height.

And there, the euphoria: the certainty of a seal broken, earth trembling with the knowledge. Meg throws her head back and laughs. She's powerful, she's weightless with it, ecstatic.

"And now _you_ ," she sings, grinning, wheeling around to Castiel. She yanks him up and he screams again as the sword tears through his already-injured wing. "You really think you could surprise _me_?" She hurls him against a wall, which nearly collapses under the force, and lights the holy oil surrounding his crumpled body. "I felt you coming from miles away, Clarence. And with no backup, either; sloppy. Balthazar couldn't make it?"

He struggles to his feet. "I'll kill you," he gasps.

Meg laughs. "Please. I remember when you were almost scary. Is this really all you've got?"

Castiel bares his teeth at her. "No," he growls, and she catches the light in his hand—

"Shit!" she screams, right as the explosion hits; she has no time to shield herself from the thousand souls he carried with him. The force of it knocks the wall clean over and sends Meg crashing into the pews. Cas limps out of the rubble, away from the fire, and he’s gone by the time her vision clears.

"God damn it," she says aloud. Then she laughs. "Next time," she promises the open air, the quiet crackling of flames. After all, this was still a victory. That's one more seal closer to seeing Lucifer again.

It's one seal closer to her son.

 

* * *

 

 **DECEMBER 31, 2015** **  
** **OAK HILL LANE**

It's a cold, clear night for the drive back to Cicero, snow-topped houses rushing by the windows. Fireworks crack at the sky now and then as people celebrate another year over. Dean's little brother is driving the Impala for the first time in three and a half years, all smiles, and his kid is sitting in the backseat with his brand-new anti-everything bracelet safe around his wrist. Dean almost forgot what it was like to be this happy.

"I don't think I ever met your aunt," Sam admits to Ben when they're about ten minutes away from the house. "I know she’s dropped you off at Bobby’s before, but...does she know about me?"

"About that," Ben says. "Before we get there, we should probably get our stories straight."

Dean twists around in the passenger's seat. He’s always kept Marie away from Sam on purpose; she’s suspicious enough of Ben’s visits without letting her know there’s a hallucinating escapee from Hell in the house. "What did _you_ tell her?"

"Well, Mom already told her you were a vet, so I just said Sam was too," Ben babbles. "Marie said she thought Sam was _dead_ , and I had to tell her he'd, like, gone missing, and you thought he _might_ be dead, but really he was fine, he was just on drugs, and then he wanted to come home and get clean, so that's why you had to—"

" _Ben_ ," says Dean. Jesus Christ, this kid. "I can't _believe_ she lets you come over as often as she does. We sound like nutcases!"

"We are nutcases," Sam says peaceably, on his sanest day in three and a half years. "Where'd we serve?"

"Hell," Ben answers. Sam laughs, the little shit. "I said that was what _you_ guys said whenever I asked, and you wouldn't tell me anything else.” He crosses his arms. “Besides, the only reason I could tell her about you guys at all was because you got me talking again. She can't argue with results."

"No she cannot," Dean says. "Left here, Sammy."

"The blue one," Ben adds, and then: "Hey look, Katie!"

Marie Braeden and Katie Doolittle stand in the front yard next to a batch of sparklers fizzing in the ground. Katie yanks the Impala’s door open almost before Sam is all the way in the driveway, pulling Ben out for a rib-cracking hug. Marie isn’t far behind, and in the flurry of greetings it’s some time before anyone notices Sam and Dean getting out of the car.

"Oh!" says Marie, patting her hair back into place. "You must be—"

"Sam Winchester," Sam says, and shakes her hand.

"Check out what I made," Ben is telling Katie, holding up his wrist. "Don’t I look cool?"

“No,” says Katie, and they punch each other.

Marie edges a little bit away from the kids so she can ask how everything went. Dean tells her it was great, like he always does, but this time he can look at Sam and really _mean_ it.

"I admit I wasn't expecting you," she says to Sam, looking a little nervous. "I hope the fireworks aren't too much."

"Don't worry about it," Sam assures her. He raises his eyebrows at Dean, who he claims is still mother henning him. "I’ve had a lot of really good days in a row."

Dean tunes out a little while they talk, watching Ben set fire to things with Katie. Marie and Sam seem to like each other, which seems a little unfair because Dean _knows_ Marie doesn't like him. But that's Sammy for you. His brother could make a friend of just about anybody.

"Are you sure you won't stay?" Marie asks. "We don’t have a guest room anymore, but I do have couches."

Sam's eyes meet Dean's behind her back. Without a word spoken Dean knows they're in agreement: this isn't for them, not yet. Not with the threat of Lucifer hanging over them. And to tell the truth, Marie looks so much like Lisa that to see her in her pajamas over breakfast would just about be more than Dean could take. Sometimes he still feels like he's looking at a ghost.

“Maybe next time,” says Dean, like he does any time Ben asks. "We're gonna drive a little ways back tonight, save some time tomorrow."

Sam ducks his head. "Believe it or not, I am actually _dying_ to stay at a crappy motel."

New Year's Eve at a motel. That actually sounds a little like heaven.

Of course, an actual representative of Heaven is going to be meeting them there, which puts a damper on things. That was Dean's stipulation: Cas isn't coming anywhere near his kid. He refused to send Ben home early, and they can't defend seals with Ben in the backseat, so the whole damn world was just going to have to wait a few days.

But Ben is safe at home now, so—

They've got work to do.

They say their goodbyes. Ben hugs Dean hard around the middle and Dean is alarmed to realize how tall he’s getting; next time he sees him they might almost be eye to eye. Ben gives Sam a hug, too, and Sam doesn’t flinch even a little bit.

“I’m driving,” Dean declares, once Marie has led the kids back to the box of fireworks. “You’ve had your turn, and I need some quality time with my baby.”

"Jerk," Sam laughs.

"Bitch," Dean replies, as Sam settles easy into shotgun. He leans his head out the window to give Ben a salute. "See you next year!"

Ben grins and waves at them all the way to the end of the street. That's the last Dean sees of him: one arm around Katie, face lit up, shrinking into the distance.

 

* * *

 

 **JANUARY 10, 2016** **  
** **SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA**

Heaven's Garden looks different to every being that passes through it. Castiel sees Eden just after sunset, when the last traces of orange have left the sky but it is not yet dark enough to see the stars. The flora here is larger than even his true form, trees like skyscrapers with leaves big enough to shade half a dozen beings at his current size. The garden teems with life: things on all fours slinking between the trees, birds flitting among the branches, all drawn from his memory of God’s first creation. A babbling creek runs through the center, clustered with fireflies.

Castiel follows the river on foot. Flying has been difficult since Meg put a sword through his wing. Returning here was enough to heal the worst of the damage, but lately his vessel has been taking longer and longer to absorb the grace he takes from Heaven. Worse still, his condition is aggravated with every use of his celestial power. Either he withholds the little strength he has left, sacrificing others to protect himself, or he keeps fighting and grows more damaged in the process.

And now another seal has fallen, and Castiel comes to the Garden weary and aching to heal himself again.

Heaven’s heart is a twist of blue-white grace from before time began, blooming where once grew the tree that bore the forbidden fruit; it stretches up towards the sky without end. Hannah and Hester are waiting for him there, Hannah towering over Castiel's tiny human vessel in her true form, Hester currently envesseling a very large lynx.

"More already?" Hannah asks as he stretches out his human hand towards the fountain. Her question comes from four different mouths, light rippling on her many faces as the grace rolls over him in waves, soothing his many injuries. She's been keeping watch on his comings and goings lately. She tries to be discreet, but angels have never been known for their subtlety. "What are you _doing_ down there?"

Hester's tail twitches in irritation. _Don't bother asking. He won't tell us._

Now that Balthazar is dead, these two collectively serve as Castiel's second-in-command. Balthazar would be pleased to learn it took two angels to fill his shoes, but in truth their official duties haven't changed much. Hester's garrison patrols earth, making certain none of their kind take on human vessels—a rule Castiel set in place in honor of Jimmy Novak and his daughter Claire. Hannah's garrison oversees the billions of Heavens occupied by human souls, a task made far more complicated since Castiel unlocked the doors to let everyone roam freely. Neither of them follow him on his frequent trips to earth.

"It's been a very long week," Castiel says at last.

 _Are you going to have to take more souls?_ Hester asks, unhappy.

"No," Castiel says, too sharp. He only took the ones Hannah could be certain were dormant, those so tired of their millennia of existence that they were already in a state of something like sleep. And he _needed_ them, with no backup against Meg. Still, the guilt nags at him: they're gone forever, after being promised eternity. No power but God himself could bring them back. "I won't be needing to do that anymore," he says, glad he can be honest about something. After all, he has Sam and Bobby now. And Dean. Sort of.

 _Good,_  says Hester, flexing her claws, her reflective eyes flashing in the grace-light.

"I suppose it's lucky you had them," Hannah says. "Otherwise she might have gotten more than your wing."

"Yes." Castiel stretches it carefully, watching the cluster of grace that has settled there, trying to heal the old wound.

Hannah and Hester know he fights the Queen of Hell, but he hasn't told them why. The less he has to lie, the better; he learned that lesson the hard way. Angels are used to not asking questions, but they won't stand for it forever, and Hester in particular has taken to free will with a shine. Sometimes he worries she'll figure out what's going on whether he tells her or not.

He wishes he could trust them. But he won't risk another civil war.

"I have to get back," he says at last, and goes.

It's very late on earth; after midnight. Just as time drags on in Hell, turning four months on earth into forty years below, Heaven's goes just a little faster than earth's. A text—to Sam—gets the location of a bar in Shreveport near where he left them. Castiel flies himself into a stall in the men's room and feels quite cunning at his discretion when nobody notices him exit.

Most of the patrons have left for the evening, though Sam appears to be hustling those that remain over a pool table. Castiel won't interrupt. Sam's energy since Castiel attempted to restore his wall has been all but boundless; he lives life until he's exhausted with it, reveling in everything he couldn't do before. He says he sleeps soundly, a welcome change, and no longer has trouble eating meat or tolerating loud noises. He still shies away from bright lights, but that’s the worst of it.

Dean and Bobby are at the bar, talking quietly. Bobby has his cell phone out. "I've got contacts out there," he says. "My Japanese is rusty, but I can explain what's going on, and get some people out there on it. Save us a plane trip."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Dean asks, keeping his voice low. "Letting people in on it? Cas doesn't even want to tell the other angels."

"I promise I'll tell 'em it's need-to-know only," Bobby says. "But Dean, we can't do everything on our own. If we'd had backup today, that seal might still be in one piece."

"Who are you, and what happened to the real Bobby?" Dean demands.

"He got old," Bobby sighs, "and his knees got tired." He spots Castiel over Dean's shoulder and gets to his feet. "All right. I'm gonna go make my call."

Castiel panics. He does not want to be left alone with Dean. "I can—"

"—have a drink," Bobby finishes for him. He claps Castiel's shoulder on his way out. "And pay up my tab," he calls back.

Whiskey does nothing for Castiel. He orders a shot anyway, awkward, and sits next to Dean. Dean glances over at him, then picks up a quarter and bounces it off the bar. It lands in his glass on the first try. He fishes it out and bounces again. Perfect shot.

"What are you doing?" Castiel asks.

"Drinkin'," says Dean. Except he isn't, at least for the moment. At Castiel’s expression he sighs, a near-silent thing, and relents: "Quarters." Another bounce, another landing. "My dad taught me. I used to play it with Ben when he was younger." Bounce. Clink. "I mean, I tried not to drink too much in front of the kid, but as often as he caught me at it—I figured I might as well make it something fun. Nothing to freak out about." He slides the quarter over to Castiel. "Try it. Harder than it looks."

Castiel gives him a dubious look. "My physical reflexes and muscle control are near-perfect."

"Throw the damn quarter, Cas."

Dean's being unusually companionable at the moment, so Castiel throws. It hits the rim of the glass and bounces away. Dean catches it in his palm before it can rolls off the bar.

Castiel frowns. "That was unexpected."

"It takes practice." Dean bounces the quarter into the glass again. Even half-drunk, he's good. "I've had lots and lots of practice, trust me."

"Lots of drinking," Castiel surmises.

"Dad taught me that too," Dean mutters. He looks at Castiel and away. "So! Too bad we didn't see Queen Bitch herself today, huh?"

Castiel takes a sip of his drink to give himself time to catch up. The whiskey burns unpleasantly on the way down. "Killing her would end this,” he says. “But I don't know that the four of us could face her in direct combat. She's incredibly powerful, even for the Queen of Hell. Our only real advantage lies with Heaven’s weapons, and using them ended none too well for anyone last time."

Dean's face closes off almost at once. "No, you keep your mitts off those things. We just gotta figure out where she's charging those batteries. Cut her off at the source, if that's possible." There's chorus of groans from the pool table, and Castiel glances over to see Sam swaggering a little as he collects his winnings. Dean sees him too, and the corner of his mouth tips up in a smile. He looks back at Castiel, remarkably clear-eyed. "Kind of like the good old days, huh? Seals coming down, us backed into a corner, me at least fifty percent sure you’re gonna turn on us..."

That stings. Castiel supposes he should be thankful those odds aren't worse.

Dean flips the quarter again. It misses, finally. "At least Sam's not running around with some demon chick. If he starts making out with Meg, I quit."

"We came to an understanding, you and I," Castiel says. "In the end."

"Yeah, I guess we did," Dean says. "For all the good it did us."

 

* * *

 

 **JANUARY 23, 2016** **  
** **HAVRE DE GRACE, MARYLAND**

Dean wakes up about five seconds before Sam comes in the door, hand automatically going for his knife before he recognizes his brother's footsteps. A rush of snowy air chases Sam inside.

"Hey," Dean yawns, sitting up and scrubbing at his hair. "How's the snowpocalypse going? See any AT-ATs?"

"Just Cas," Sam replies, and sets down a fresh pizza with a six-pack of beer. "He gave us a list of about fifty more seals, and more importantly, food."

Dean scowls, suspicious, even as the smell of sausage and cheese draws him from his bed. "Pizza?"

"He offered," Sam says with a shrug. "Seeing as how he can fly to a pizza place that’s actually open."

And he kept it warm all the way from St. Louis to Maryland. Dean snorts and digs in.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Make that face like Cas is going to come demand a pound of flesh for bringing us dinner.”

“Isn’t he?” Dean says through an onion darkly. Truth is, he sort of wishes Cas _would_ come by, just for a minute. He knows it’s stupid, but he misses his friend; part of him still wants to let his guard down even after everything Cas did.

But that’s him, isn’t it? Dean obeyed his father time and again, no matter how many nights he left them with no heat and no food. If his dad crawled out of the grave tomorrow, Dean would still have that obedience ready like a reflex. It's not so different with Cas: the trust is like something built into his bones. Fighting that is just as exhausting as biting his tongue against _yes sir_ could ever be.

Sam gives him that sympathetic look that's a little too close to pity for Dean's comfort, which more or less means he already knows what Dean’s thinking and he's sick of watching Dean fight himself. Like the natural conclusion is for Dean to just get over himself and go on like it never happened. Sam might forgive Cas for choosing the greater good over him, the fucking martyr, but Dean doesn’t. He can't.

Even if he wants to.

"Beer?" Sam asks after a moment.

Dean mutters "Yeah, I guess," and they sit and watch the snow cover the windows.

 

* * *

 

 **FEBRUARY 2, 2016** **  
** **PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS**

"You know the funniest part of all this?" Sam says. "Lucifer _hates_ demons. Even if Meg gets him out, he's just gonna kill her." His eyes are crossing, trying to figure out which seals are still unbroken; Revelations is less like a masterlist and more like a poorly-translated series of hints. These dusty tomes Cas keeps bringing them are a lot harder to read than hunters’ journals, too. At least now Dean isn’t trying to keep Sam from reading them.

"Meg won’t believe that," Castiel says. It's just the two of them today, working through ancient texts as the afternoon sun streams through the motel room windows; Dean and Bobby are scouting a nearby ley line. "She’s thrown her lot in with Lucifer and she won’t waver from it. She may be a demon, but she does have loyalty."

Meg herself told Sam something like that once. The longer they chase her, the more Sam gets flashes of intuition telling him why Meg does the things she does, or which move she'll make next. More often than not, his hunches prove true. He can only think maybe he’s pulling from memories she left behind nearly a decade ago, long before Lucifer, during that awful week when Meg took his body for a joyride. Maybe somewhere deep down in Sam’s fucked-up head, there's a Meg someone could talk to too.

"Cas," Sam asks, "what's it like? Possessing someone?"

Castiel looks up. "What?"

“Taking a vessel, I mean.” Sam shrugs, uncomfortable; he knows angels technically have to have permission first, but sometimes there sure doesn’t feel like much of a difference. "I just wondered."

Castiel closes Sam's laptop and turns to him, giving the answer his whole attention. "I'm not sure how to describe it," he says at last. "I imagine it's similar to _being_ possessed. Two beings in one body, especially a being so large as an angel...we must fold ourselves very tightly to fit.” He looks down at his borrowed hands. “And angels don’t only occupy the physical body; we rely on our vessel’s soul as well. You may remember."

"Yeah." Sam's chest is tight. He does.

"I have only envesseled two people," Castiel says. "Both times, their souls were laid bare before me. I had access to all their memories, every guilty secret and furtive dream." His gaze goes somewhere far away. "I still have access to much of Jimmy's, though his soul is gone; the body remembers. His daughter Claire, however—all that she was is lost to me now. I see her only through her father's eyes." He looks uncomfortable. "It is very fortunate that our time together was so brief."

"Did he ever fight you?" Sam asks. "Jimmy, I mean."

Castiel shifts, looks away away again. "You have to understand I was different then. I questioned nothing. _Nothing._ "

"So he did."

"A little," Castiel admits. "Before Claire. After, he remained passive until Raphael killed us both." Castiel drags a hand down his face. "I came back; he didn't."

"Lucky him," says Sam. He stares at his books without seeing them.

"Why do you ask?"

Sam blinks, shakes himself. "It's nothing."

Castiel raises his eyebrows. "Sam."

Sam shrugs. "I just keep thinking," he says quietly. "We keep losing seals, getting there too late, cleaning up the messes...what if we can't do it? I mean, all she has to do is wear us down, and eventually—"

"We only have to kill her," Castiel corrects. "And we have the Colt, the knife, and myself for that. Once she dies, our fight ends."

"She has an army," Sam says. "And so much _power_. That thing in the forest that night...I didn't realize it was only one demon. I don't know if she _can_ be killed. And if she does set Lucifer free—he'll need a vessel." His hands clench in his lap. "I don't want to tell Dean, but it scares me. He really, really scares me."

Castiel looks stricken. "Sam..."

"Sorry," Sam says. "I've got too much room to worry when I'm not exhausted. Even if the real one doesn't come back, the one in my head will break through sooner or later."

"I can help with that," Castiel offers quietly. "I'm here, so long as the both of you will have me. Whatever protection I can offer—even from your own mind—it is yours."

"Thanks," Sam murmurs. "We appreciate it. Even Dean." The look Castiel gives him is so disbelieving he can't help but laugh. "You're wearing him down, believe me. Deep down he still wants to be your friend."

“If you say so,” says Cas, glancing dubiously toward the door. Sam snorts.

“Even if Dean insists on being an asshole,” he says, “ _I_ still want to be your friend. So.” He smiles. “You’d better keep sticking around.”

 

* * *

 

 **FEBRUARY 14, 2016** **  
** **SWEET LIPS, TENNESSEE**

"Seals are a perversion of the laws of nature," says Cas. His hair is rumpled, tie undone, and he's missing his trenchcoat. "Killing reapers, who are masters of death. Making vengeful spirits of those who were at rest. The woman with the rabbits—"

"Don't talk about the rabbits," says Sam, wiping lipstick off his cheek.

"A human giving birth to animals is unnatural," Cas says firmly, as though anyone would argue with him. "It's a seal. So is this."

"You saying it's unnatural for anyone to want some Sasquatch action?" says Dean, waggling his eyebrows at Sam. "I mean, I know Sammy's game is weak, but that's just harsh."

"Not funny, Dean," and oh, there's the bitchface, Dean can't believe how much he missed it. Sam's ears are totally turning red. "We need to find out _why_ everyone in this town is having some sort of—"

"Orgy," Dean supplies.

"—extreme physical reaction, of a sexual nature," Sam finishes. What a nerd. No wonder that librarian wanted to climb him. "They’re completely lacking inhibitions. And it seems contagious.” He shifts in his seat.

"If I wanted to inspire lust," says Cas, and wow it's weird to hear that rolling out of an angel's mouth, "the simplest course of action would be to summon her. I believe you’re familiar with the seven deadly sins?"

Dean’s got to hand it to Meg: unleashing a sex whammy on a town called Sweet Lips, on Valentine’s Day, is just too good an opportunity to be missed. But the horde of sex zombies has gotten pretty old by the time they find Lust in the middle of it, and unfortunately for the Winchesters, she remembers them too. It's only thanks to Castiel's quick action with a blade that they don't meet a sticky end at the hands of a leather daddy wielding a chain whip.

"Well," says Sam, as the writhing mess of unfaithful spouses all blink and seem to realize where they are. "I guess that means the effects are going to wear off?"

Dean, who has been valiantly ignoring his dick situation for the greater good, says "Yep!" and makes sure to beat Sam into the shower when they get back to the motel.

Cas still looks tense when they reconvene a few hours later to work out their next move, which means there's a thing or two about being human he hasn't figured out yet after all—but at least he found his trenchcoat. Dean laughs and laughs and laughs at him, and promises to take him to see Chastity again when this is all over with.

 

* * *

 

 **FEBRUARY 20, 2016** **  
** **WEYBURN, SASKATCHEWAN**

Dean’s whole body aches. They lost another seal, the roof of this motel leaks, and he’s in fucking _Canada._ Still, it’s Saturday, and that means he calls Ben no matter what.

“Dean!” Ben chirps, picking up on the first ring. “Dude, you’ll never guess what happened.” Without waiting for a reply, he launches into a long anecdote about how he thought he’d caught a monster among his classmates with that new bracelet of his, but he couldn’t tell which one of the things had affected her, and then it turned out she was actually just getting hives because she was allergic to the fish sandwich he was having for lunch.

Laughing hurts, but Dean does it anyway. “Smooth moves, Ben.”

“I learned them from you,” Ben shoots back.

“Don’t make me come down there,” says Dean, and he aches at how _normal_ it all is. Ben’s got no idea the devil might be coming to town; Dean plans to keep it that way.

"When _are_ you coming back?" Ben asks. "We've got a long weekend coming up. I know it's probably not enough time to drive me out to Sioux Falls, but maybe you could swing by or something, spend a couple of nights on the couch. Since you're mobile now and all."

Dean winces, looking down at himself. He's mostly just banged up, but his leg is broken in the same goddamn place it was after the Raphael fiasco. At least this time Cas promised to fix it, as soon as he gets recharged. "I don't know," he hedges. "We're pretty busy out here."

"Maybe I could help," Ben says, a little too quick. "I've backed you up before, I didn't do too bad—"

"No," Dean says, serious. "No, this isn't regular hunting, Ben, this is really dangerous. _Really_ dangerous. We're making enemies I don't ever want you to meet."

There's a long, disappointed pause on the other end of the line. “You’re being careful, right, Dean?”

“Always am,” says Dean. Ben doesn’t say anything, and Dean sits up a little straighter, shifting the ice packs on his leg. "Hey. None of that. You'll see us again soon, I promise."

“Okay,” says Ben, but he doesn’t quite sound like he believes it.

 

* * *

 

 

 **FEBRUARY 29, 2016** **  
** **ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN**

The first time they actually run into Meg, she’s overseeing a truly sick ritual of possessed children killing their parents. The last adult dies right as they burst through the door, which means the seal is already broken, but Sam'll be damned if he lets the demons get away in those poor kids. He snaps out an exorcism—not one of the Latin ones he’s memorized, but a command in Enochian, short and brutal.

It works on every demon but Meg.

Meg sees the Colt in Dean’s hand, so she doesn’t stay to chat, but she lashes a quick strike across Castiel’s chest before vanishing into smoke, meatsuit and all.

"Cas!" Dean yells, as the terrified children realize where they are and start wailing. "Shit, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Castiel pants. He's on his knees in the dirt, blood on his trenchcoat and light pouring out through Castiel's clenched fingers. "Get the children out of here, they don't need to see—" He breaks into a coughing fit. "No child should see—"

"I've got 'em," Bobby says, shepherding the young ones out.

Sam hears all their voices as though from underwater, staring at Castiel’s wound. He wonders if anyone else can hear that high-pitched whine coming from the light, getting louder and louder.

Dean presses his hands over Castiel's, closing the gash. The light vanishes. "Hey," he says, "Cas, _hey,_  look at me—"

Sam shakes himself. His ears play tricks on him; Lucifer's not here. He's never been here. Only in Sam’s head. He grabs for his palm.

"She’s using Balthazar’s sword on purpose." Cas struggles to his feet, grabbing tight at Dean's shoulder. "She's _taunting_ me. If you won’t let me use the weapons, at least give me the Colt and let me end her!"

"Easy there, Rambo," Dean says. "Why don't you just sit down, okay?"

"I need to heal," Castiel growls. He breaks free of Dean, and that _sound_ comes spilling out of his side again. Sam flinches, squeezes his palm harder, digs his thumbnail in.

"Sam?" Dean looks between them, torn. "You okay?"

Castiel takes flight and Sam feels like he can breathe again. His hands drop. "Fine," he says. "I'm fine."

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 15, 2016** **  
** **THE IMPALA**

"Why the car?" Dean asks.

Sam blinks at him. Plenty of nights back at Bobby's Dean had found him like this, curled up in the Impala's backseat with one hand digging into the palm of the other, but this is the first time it's happened since Cas restacked the wall between Sam and his nightmares. It takes a minute for the answer to come: "He hates this car."

 _He_. Things must be bad if Sam won't even say Lucifer's name. Dean knew the fix wasn't going to be permanent, but oh, he had hoped for longer than this.

"The devil hates my baby, huh?" he says, forcing cheer into his tone. "Well, I guess we're doing something right." He gives the dashboard a fond pat. Good on her.

"Ever since you drove up to Stull Cemetery." Sam's eyes still haven't quite focused. "You wouldn't say yes to Michael, but you still came back for me. You ruined everything."

Dean rubs his cheekbone, the first place Sam's fist hit when Lucifer threw him onto the hood of the Impala and started going to town. He'd been ready to die that day, but he didn't want to go before he got to see Sam, even for just a moment. There was so much blood in his eyes he could barely see—and then the hits stopped. Lucifer was looking over Dean's shoulder, looking at the car. And then it wasn't Lucifer at all.

Sam tips his head up, fingers brushing over their little green army man, stuck in that door for who knows how many years. "It was the stupidest little thing," he says. "I just thought—we grew up in this car, you know? I'm not doing this here. Not today. And then..." He laughs, sounding rusty. "Well, you know how it went after that."

In Dean's memory, Sam fell for a very long time.

"Well," he says. "If that asshole can't stand to be near this car, maybe we should aim to spend more time in her. Take some nice long drives between seals."

"Like we haven't been driving twelve hours a day anyway?" Sam snorts. "Hell, maybe I should just move in full-time."

"Hey, why not? We've got climate control, soft place to sleep, some sweet tunes—"

"Sweet might be pushing it," says Sam, but he's smiling. "A man can't live on mullet rock alone."

"We'll order a lot of drive-thru." Dean leans back, staring at the sky through the car window. "And get someone to pick up the plastic bottles we pee in. You think we could make Cas do it?"

"Dean, _gross!"_ Sam's outright laughing now, the shadow gone from his face. Dean is such a good brother. "And what's this _we_? Are you planning to spend the rest of your life in a tin can?"

"One, she is _not_ a tin can." Dean strokes the steering wheel reassuringly. "And two—yeah, if you're here. Course I'd come." Nothing ever goes right when he and Sam are split apart. Where he goes, Dean follows.

Sam's making a real dumb face right now, all soft and puppy-eyed. Dean would call him on it, but, well, he doesn't. "Thanks, Dean."

"I'm just glad it still works," he says gruffly. "Even after all that time downstairs."

Sam laughs. "There were no cars down there, that's for sure." He sighs, settling. "I didn't have much to be thankful for, but some things they left alone. At least Adam was already gone when we fell."

Dean sits upright. "What? I thought—" Death told him to _choose._ Dean chose Sam, and he'd make the same call a hundred times if it came down to it, but it's always eaten at him that some innocent civilian had to pay such a horrifying price for having Winchester blood. And now it turns out only one of his brothers was ever down there in the first place?

"You didn't know?" Sam shakes hair out of his face. "Adam was done the minute Lucifer blew his body all to pieces. Michael reformed the vessel, sure, but the soul inside it was long gone. Just like with Cas and that Jimmy guy."

Dean wrinkles his nose. He doesn't like to think about that, how Cas's body used to be some guy from Illinois and now their friend is basically walking around in a corpse. Reminds him too much of Ruby. But Adam...

"Adam made it to Heaven?" he asks, trying to adjust to this revelation. It's the only good news he's gotten all week. "With his mom?"

"Yeah, Dean, yeah he did." Sam squeezes his shoulder. "Man, if I'd known it was bothering you I would've said something sooner."

"It's okay. You had a lot on your mind." Understatement. Try as they might, they're losing seals right and left, and there aren't many more to go. But Dean is selfishly glad that he can put down the weight of blame he carries for at least one person. Then, because it's quiet and dark and he's half-asleep after the adrenaline spike of waking up without Sam next to him, he says, "I used to think—hell, Sam, that year at Lisa's, I just kept thinking I should have played along. Said yes so we'd both have ended up down there. Then Adam would've been fine, and you and me..."

Sam shudders. "God, Dean. No. If you hadn't—I would never have been able to throw Lucifer off without you there. The real you." He bites at his fingernails. "They would have used us against each other. Made us watch."

"Still wouldn't have been as bad if we'd gone together." Dean's been to Hell; he knows what he's talking about. He loved Lisa a whole damn lot, Ben too, and in another life he could've spent the rest of his life with them. But there were some days he'd rather have been back in the Pit if only he could be next to Sam.

Sam shifts, his eyes falling closed. "It's better that I was alone."

"Never again," Dean swears. "Hear me, little brother? We're in this together."

"I hear you," Sam murmurs, quiet: already halfway to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 24, 2016** **  
** **HELENA, MONTANA**

Dean's got himself trained to wake up whenever Sam does. Granted, he doesn’t always have the fastest reaction time, but he's still appalled to turn over and find Sam's bed already empty.

"He's all right."

Dean jerks up to find Castiel sitting at the table by the door, Sam's laptop open in front of him. "What the _fuck_ , Cas?"

"I apologize," Castiel says quickly. "Sam—needed some air, and asked me to watch over you. He just didn't want you waking alone."

It's storming outside. Cas turns to look out at the rain, lightning flashing against his profile.

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He's so tired. "Why did he need air? Did he—wake up too?"

Castiel seems to sense his meaning. "Yes," he says, and gets to his feet. He shuts the laptop and walks over to Sam's half-made bed, sitting down across from Dean. "I think he's all right, Dean. Your soul isn't damaged and _you_ still have nightmares. This latest loss was a hard one."

Dean doesn't have a reply to that. Thunder rumbles.

"If he's not all right," Dean says finally, "can you fix him again? Like before?" He doesn't want to think about a world where Sam's not all right, nor does he like turning to Castiel for that reassurance. But he needs something to cling to.

"My grace will remain inside Sam,” says Cas. "I don’t have the means to retrieve it."

Dean crosses his arms. "I'm sensing a _but_."

"But it's unpredictable." Castiel spreads his hands. "Grace isn’t meant to stay in a vessel long-term. Maybe it can continue to buffer the wall, but its presence may cause other problems I haven’t foreseen."

"Great," Dean mutters. "Well, you just be ready to take another peek under the hood soon. He's been talking in his sleep."

Castiel frowns. "What is he saying?"

Dean folds his arms against his body. Rain patters against the windows. "He says, 'He's coming. Lucifer is coming.'"


	3. Chapter 3

**MARCH 28, 2016** **  
** **A BARN IN PENNSYLVANIA**

"Comfy?" asks Meg, twirling Balthazar's sword between her fingers.

Castiel doesn't answer. To be fair, he's currently hanging in chains off a rack she brought up from Hell especially for the purpose, bleeding heavily from his cut throat. In fits and spurts, scorching the dusty barn with its electric smell, grace leaks out of his vessel and into the obsidian vial she placed at his feet. The circle of holy fire seems almost superfluous.

"Back in Lilith's heyday, we never even thought about trying to break this seal," she says conversationally. "The blood of an angel? A score of demons couldn't stand against one of you. It was impossible. Now..." Meg lifts up her hand. "Now I've got an angel showing up to every bash I throw, and he doesn't have the juice to take me on."

At her command the flames shoot up towards the arched ceiling of the barn, licking at the rafters. Castiel once used Meg's own body as a bridge to escape a trap like this, throwing her into the fire and treading on her back as he stepped out of the circle; she was nothing more than a prop to him then. This curly-haired host has been bound to her ever since, the soul seared away, its ashes permanently part of her cloud of smoke—but she's so much stronger now. No one will use her for anything ever again.

"Maybe I don't," Castiel rasps, fighting to speak through the blood still bubbling from his neck. The glare he gives her is unchanged. "But one of these days you'll have to answer to the Winchesters."

Meg laughs in his face. "They're just men," she says. "I took Sam Winchester apart with a _thought._ And I wasn't even the first one, was I? I heard about what you did, Clarence. How you stole all your daddy's toys and broke that wall in poor little Sammy's head. You'd only pull something that stupid if you had nothing left to lose."

Cas snarls at her, but the force sends him into a coughing fit. She stares him down with the sharp clarity of eyes gone black.

"I was willing to let them live, you know. They weren't getting in anyone's way up in that shithole in South Dakota, and hey, the Morningstar is gonna need a vessel once I set him free. But you just had to drag them back into the game, didn't you?" She stalks closer, relishing the pain on his face. "Think how they must hate you, ruining their lives over and over. They're probably glad to be rid of you." More accurately, they're probably off trying to save another seal that's rigged to break far from here, but Castiel doesn't need to know that. "You think I'm scared of the Winchesters? What are the chances they'd even bother to come rescue you?"

Castiel's gaze drifts somewhere over her shoulder, and he bares his bloody teeth in a loopy sort of smile. "At least fifty percent."

And behind her, Dean Winchester cocks the trigger of the Colt.

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 28, 2016** **  
** **ELDORA, IOWA**

The one upside to going after the biggest, baddest bitch downstairs is that power like that always leaves a mark. That's the price of being in charge, at least when you're a demonic piece of shit: you come topside and everyone knows about it. Dean's dad never taught him how to track something like that, but Dean's had years to go over John's notes, and he's gotten pretty damn good at putting omens together himself. And it's a good thing, too, because they need to know where Meg is and they need to know it _yesterday_.

"Son, you might want to consider a catnap," Bobby says bracingly. "It's two in the morning."

"Cas could be _dying_." Dean throws down yesterday's weather report. "Hell, he could already be dead, I don't know how long it takes to drain an angel's grace." He stares at the map on his laptop screen, but nothing jumps out at him. "If he was in Heaven he'd _answer_. Sam prayed."

"You're the one with the profound bond," Sam says from the other bed. "Maybe if _you_ tried—"

"Keep translating," Dean snaps. Cas left them some ancient text that they were supposed to discuss at their next meeting, except that when the time came, Cas never showed. They're six hundred and sixty-three seals down, with two more set to blow at the same time—one here in Iowa, one wherever she's got Cas and his grace—plus a final seal that they still don't know anything about. Cas risked a lot to figure out what that last seal is, and now he's paying the price. They might all be dead in less than a week, and Dean doesn't even know if he'll ever get to thank him.

Sam lets out a huge breath and scrubs a hand down over his face. "I'm going as fast as I can. This Enochian dialect is incredibly ancient; even Michael and Lucifer don't talk like this anymore."

Enochian. Of course Sam can translate that, after hundreds of years in Hell with a pair of God's oldest archangels. Dean feels sort of sick. "We'll let you get to it, then," he says, and snaps the laptop shut. "Bobby?"

Bobby follows him outside. "Way I see it, we've got one option," he says, once they're clear of the door. "You and Sam go get Cas, while I stay here to stand guard over those grave mounds."

Dean chews on his lip. "I don't like it," he says. "Leaving you without backup, that don't sit right to me."

Bobby shrugs. "We can't split you up from Sam in case his wall goes Humpty Dumpty on us, and sending in a lone man on a rescue mission is a fool's errand. Maybe I'll give Jody Mills a call, see if she can make it out here in time."

"What if you can't stop them desecrating that tomb?" Dean says. "We'll have lost another seal and left you behind for nothing. If we _all_ go to save Cas, maybe we'll be in time to break up Meg's ritual. Maybe he'll be—" The words won't come out.

Bobby puts a hand on Dean's shoulder, abruptly serious. "Son, I know what is and what ain't my business, and I haven't said a thing to you about Cas since you two came to stay with me. But even I can tell this grudge's been eating at you." He grimaces. "We've got three seals left before the end of the world. If you need to make your peace, or such—now's the time."

Dean shrugs away. "Can't make peace with somebody who's not here," he says roughly.

"Just cause he can't get a call out doesn't mean he's not hearing our prayers." Bobby shrugs. "Like I said, it ain't my business. But if you want to take five, I'll look out for you."

Dean's jaw works a moment. It's not like Bobby's ever optimistic, but _shit._  "Thanks," he says finally, and with a small nod, heads out to the parking lot. He needs privacy, somewhere safe.

Dean gets in the driver's seat of the Impala, pulls all the doors shut, locks them. Grips his keys but doesn't start her up. For a long moment everything is quiet.

"You're a son of a bitch, you know that?" he says to the sky.

No answer. Typical.

Dean leans back in his seat, hands on the wheel. "I was _done_ with you, Cas. You broke Sam into a million pieces, even after we gave you so many chances to turn back. You let Lisa die when I was begging you for help. Because you wouldn't stop." His fingers tighten, knuckles going white. "Even when you tried to fix Sam, it was just so we could fight your battles, same as when you pulled me outta Hell. That new wall won't hold. And Lisa's—" He swallows, hard. "Lisa's never coming back."

Cars pass by on the street. Old sounds. Dean takes a breath and smooths his hands down the wheel before gripping it again. "But you did fix him," he says. "You keep saying it was a mistake. I just keep thinking how sure I was that you were gonna open Purgatory that day, how if you did that you'd really be past saving. But something must've gotten through to you, because—because you didn't." A laugh makes its way out of him. "It's really hard to keep hating you when you look so _sorry_ all the time, you know?"

There's still no answer. When silence met his prayers back at Lisa's house, Dean had assumed Cas was just busy with more important matters. That was fine; all he'd really needed back then was to spill the shit in his mind to someone with half a hope of understanding him. What it means that Cas isn't answering him now...Dean doesn't want to think about it.

"I'm pretty sure we're all about to die," he mutters. "And I swear to God, I'm not letting Lucifer take my little brother again. I'd sooner strap us both in this car and drive off the end of a pier. But if—" His eyes are watering; when did that start? He shudders through another breath. "Christ, I'm spilling my guts here. Point is, if this is really the end, I wanted you to know something." Dean tips his head back and lets his words travel straight up. "I'm—Cas, I'm sorry. You told us you were fighting a war, and we didn't pay any attention until you were at the end of your rope. Now, I'm not making excuses for the choices you made, because that's on you. But...maybe I'm to blame for some of it too. If we all make it out of this alive—" He lets go of the wheel and clears his throat. "Well, that's all I wanted you to know."

Dean's phone rings.

He scrambles for it so fast he almost drops it. "Cas?"

"Dean," says Sam. "I think we found her."

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 28 2016** **  
** **A BARN IN PENNSYLVANIA**

"You think I'm scared of the Winchesters?" Meg moves closer to where Cas is chained up and bleeding. "What are the chances they'd even bother to come rescue you?"

Dean can see the exact moment Cas catches sight of them at the barn door, Sam with his demon knife, Dean with the Colt already pointed at the back of Meg's head. Dean winks.

Castiel grins, blood on his teeth. "At least fifty percent," he tells her.

 _Attaboy_ , thinks Dean, and fires.

Meg's _fast_. Between one millisecond and the next she turns to smoke, and the bullet very nearly hits Cas instead. "Hey!" Dean shouts, scanning the shadowy interior of the barn. "What happened to not being scared of us, huh?" But she's been skittish at the sight of the Colt since the beginning; he can only hope her retreat means she's given up on this seal. History tells him they won't be seeing her again tonight.

"Dean," Cas rasps, straining upward in his chains. Dean grabs the first vaguely fireproof thing he sees—it turns out to be an old raincoat hanging from a peg on the wall—and throws it down on the circle of holy fire, crossing to Castiel in a heartbeat. There's so much blood.

"I gotcha," he says, the comforting tone slipping out of him before he can stop it. "Come on. Let's go." He debates for a moment, then shoots the lock off the chains, catching Cas before he can slump to the ground.

"You prayed to me," mumbles Cas. His skin is ashen, blood slick all down his front, and when Dean tries to prop him up he feels dangerously unsteady on his feet. "I heard you. I always heard you." He coughs wetly. "Dean. I'm sorry too."

"Cas—" Dean starts, not entirely sure what's going to come out.

Sam cries out in pain, and there's a low _thud_.

Dean whirls around. His brother is down on his knees in the dirt, hands clapped over his ears, making a hurt animal sound Dean hasn't heard from him in months. "Sam!"

"That _light_ ," Sam hisses. "I, I can't—I said _no—"_

"Sam, it's not real!" Dean scrambles back out of the fire, dragging Cas along with him. "Sam!"

Cas wrenches out of his grip, stumbling. "Dean, we can't leave my grace behind, she'll use it for the ritual—"

The ground shakes. Dean has about three-quarters of a second to look Castiel in the eyes, but it's enough to see that he's going to protect the seal, even though it's a fight he's sure to lose.

The the barn goes black. No more holy fire, no more moonlight, no more light from Castiel's grace in the vial on the ground. They're standing in a demon-cloud, and Dean can't see more than two inches in front of his face. Helpless, Dean grabs for Sam and holds on tight enough to hurt.

Castiel screams. Then the smoke clears.

The grace is gone. Castiel's on all fours, covered in burns, shaking but alone. "Cas?"

"She got it," Castiel pants. "I couldn't stop her. I wasn't strong enough. She's gone."

Sam manages to crawl about half a foot and then throws up in the dirt. He gets out, "I'm—" and then heaves again. "I'm okay." He drags the back of his sleeve over his mouth, still trembling violently. "I just—I thought he was—"

"You seein' anything?" Dean asks, urgent.

Sam shakes his head, fast. "N-no. Not anymore. I'm fine."

Dean is choosing to believe him, because the alternative is more than he can handle right now. He helps Sam back to his feet and gives him a bracing clap on the shoulder before turning again to Cas.

"Sam, I can—try to help." Castiel pushes himself upright against a wooden beam. The wound on his neck has finally closed, but his shirt is still dripping dark red. "But I need to return to Heaven, my grace is almost all gone—I'm sorry—"

"Cas, you almost died. It's okay." Sam drags a hand down his face. "I lived with the wall shattered to pieces. I can live like this."

"Meet us at the motel once you're recharged," Dean adds. "Sammy, if you can swing it, we need that last seal translated. Me and Bobby will keep looking for Meg's omens."

" _Last?_ " Castiel echoes, alarmed. "What of the graves in Iowa?"

Dean shakes his head. "Gone." They got the text from Bobby just before finding Cas: _Jody's hurt. We lost it. Hope you boys are having better luck._

"And now Meg's got enough of your grace for her ritual," says Sam. "So whatever's left—" He runs a shaky hand through his hair. "If she pops that last seal open, it's the apocalypse all over again. And this time no one can put him back. Not even me."

"I'll come back as soon as I can." Cas straightens, and Dean assumes he's going to vanish right there, but he pauses for a moment. "Thank you. For coming to get me."

"C'mon, Cas, we weren't gonna leave you behind," Dean mutters. "Just, call if it'll be a while? Don't want any more disappearances."

"I will." Castiel squeezes Dean's left shoulder, a thoughtless gesture from back when their companionship felt like an easy thing. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then stops, shakes his head a little. "It was good to hear you pray again," he says finally.

He lets go; smiles.

Then he's gone.

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **HADLEY, PENNSYLVANIA**

_Ten thousand strong bring them forth, one sunrise to the next: neither human nor demon, neither dead nor alive, so that their hunger consumes the earth._

Dean's silent for a minute after Sam finishes reading. "The fuck does that mean?"

"I don't know." Sam rubs his eyes, vision blurring from hours of staring at the tiny cuneiform. "She's got to summon ten thousand of something, but not demons. Or humans. Why are seals always so _cryptic_?"

"Well, she's only got one day to do it. Maybe that's why she saved this one for last." Dean starts pacing. "Neither dead nor alive? What, is she gonna go all Dawn of the Dead on us? Do zombies count as humans?"

Bobby's voice crackles through the speakerphone. "It took Death himself to bring back those people in Sioux Falls," he says, and Sam remembers Karen Singer's pale face as she confessed she _wasn't right_. "Where's Meg gonna get that kind of firepower?"

"Where's she gotten any of it?" Dean counters. "When we first met her, she was just a stunt demon like everyone else. Now she's busting seals left and right like it's nothing." He gives a humorless laugh. "Maybe she popped open Purgatory while we weren't looking."

Sam gets the sudden crawling sensation of eyes watching him from behind. A memory clicks into place.

"Trust me, I think we'd've noticed," Bobby is saying, but Sam cuts him off.

"That's it. It's Purgatory. She needs to open Purgatory."

"What do you mean?" says Dean, and Sam barrels on, ideas coming to him faster than he can talk.

"Neither human nor demon because they're _monsters_. Think about how many souls are in there. And once she lets them out, they won't quite be dead anymore—"

 _So that their hunger consumes the earth_. Sam's stomach churns.

"But that's impossible," says Dean. "Cas destroyed the last jar of blood that could open the door, remember? You're the one who said we could trust him!"

"And there's no one else like Eleanor," Bobby puts in. "She was the only creature of Purgatory left on this earth... If Sam's right, we may have dodged a bullet here."

Sam's already shaking his head, though Bobby can't see it over the phone. "There's a gate," he says. "In Samuel Colt's last journal—let me find it—" The hard copy is still back at Bobby's house, but it's a matter of minutes for Sam to pull up the scanned copy on his laptop. A murmur is building in the back of his mind, not yet distinguishable as words, but all the harder to ignore after the respite Castiel's grace had granted him. Sam clenches his teeth and starts to read.

"March 1866. Heading East. Tales of strange fires in Centralia. With each passing decade the doorway grows weaker until I fear all of Purgatory will come spilling over the Appalachians. Eliza Elkins is with me, and I have made preparations if the worst should happen. I pray we can keep the gate closed."

"Centralia." Bobby whistles, staticky. "I remember that place. They had to move everyone out about fifty years back cause the air was toxic, and the ground wouldn't hold. Mining fires, my ass."

"So there's a hellgate in Pennsylvania," says Dean, pacing with nervous energy. "Or Purgatory gate, whatever. Colt say what set it off?"

"By the time they got there, it was already open," Sam says. "Colt didn't even write this last part; Eliza did. 'A great fire sprung up beneath the very earth, and monsters of all kinds came out from the Gate, but in spirit only, so they could not be killed. Had Samuel Colt not been with me we would all have surely died.' "

He keeps reading, describing the fight to hold the monsters at bay, Colt's makeshift spell to stop any more from getting loose, the sacrifice that finally sealed Purgatory shut once again. Dean and Bobby are silent when he finishes.

_Sssssaaaaammm..._

"Think he knew it was a seal?" says Dean.

Sam scrolls through the pages. "Hard to say. But he was ready to do whatever it took to get that door closed."

Dean's mouth firms. "Then we'd better make sure we keep it that way."

"I'm heading to you," Bobby says. "I'll stop by the house first, pick up the rest of those angel blades. I just hope they're enough."

"They'll be enough," says Dean. He runs a hand down his face. "Hey, Bobby. If this all goes down before you get here—we'll try and save you a piece, all right?"

"You better," Bobby retorts. "You still owe me twenty bucks from that poker game, son, and I aim to collect."

None of them give voice to what they're all thinking. "See you soon, Bobby," says Sam, and ends the call.

After a minute Dean clears his throat and starts throwing things in a duffel. "Chop chop, Sam. We need to get there, like, yesterday."

Sam closes the laptop, and for a split second he sees the outline of a person behind it. He draws a deep, deliberate breath. There's nothing there.

"Hey." Dean claps Sam on the shoulder, and even that small gesture helps bring the room back into full focus. "You good?"

This is the last of all possible seals, the only thing left keeping Lucifer in his cage. There will be no locking him up again next time. If they fail, this may well be the last time Sam has control of his own body—the last day before the apocalypse starts anew.

"Wouldn't miss it," Sam says, putting his hand on Dean's. "Let's go."

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA**

  
Humans call this place Centralia. It is the center of nothing: worn-down mountains shadow the abandoned buildings, the withered grass, as fissures in the ground billow smoke. Foolish, those humans, to think they could make their homes here. Cold fog rolls through the silent hills as a figure strides toward the wall of stone stretching in every direction.  
  
She's shaped like a human, but her void-black eyes betray the charred and ruined soul within. It has taken centuries to become what she is now. With a snap of her fingers, the barrier that has been guarding this place shatters between one strike of her heels and the next; it was only human magic. She places both hands on the wall, this ancient hungry gate to Purgatory, and does not flinch.  
  
"Open," she commands it.  
  
The crack of stone startles her, but her palms are back on the gate a moment later, pushing with all her strength at the newly-formed doorway. Her efforts yield only a glacial widening, the very faintest stirrings of wind as the world inside reaches out. She snarls and throws her borrowed body against the rock with ever more ferocity.  
  
"Come on," she mutters. "Come on, this is the last one, just _open_ —"  
  
She is incomparably small, cursing in the fog all alone, and all her centuries are quick as a passing thought to some of the things she seeks to unleash. Queen or not, she needs more power.  
  
Her eyes close. A deep breath.  
  
She whispers, "There you are."  
  
Now there is force behind her fingers as they pry the gate apart. So much stronger than a mere human, stronger now than any demon, she pulls and she pulls and the stone yields for her. A hundred billion shades of creatures stir behind the gate, awakening with sharp mouths and hungry bellies. They want to come out.  
  
The Queen will move mountains if that's what it takes. She _shoves_  and the crack turns into a chasm gaping wide with a wind that knocks her flat on her back. The monsters take no heed of her as they rush toward freedom, crawling and bounding and flying in search of prey, but she is equally blind to them, her vision focused somewhere very far away indeed.  
  
"March twenty-ninth," gasps the demon queen, eyes shut. "March twenty-ninth, March twenty-ninth, March—" Her jaw clicks closed; her eyes open. They burn yellow as sulfur.

Her son's name. She knows it now.

" _Jesse,_ " says Meg.

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA**

The Winchesters are, of course, too late.

The town of Centralia hasn't had any human occupants in a long time, but the sight that greets them when they come over the last ridge is far from empty. Misty grey shapes of every size and description prowl between the rotting wood houses. Purgatory has made them pure, or at least shown what they were under those human disguises, two-legged or four-legged or swooping through the fog on disembodied wings. Meg's already opened the gate, and they weren't in time to stop her.

Dean brakes hard when a shaggy creature the size of a bear lopes down the highway toward them. In the glove compartment, his EMF reader goes crazy, confirming what he already knew: they can't hope to kill this thing, because it's already dead.

"Shit," he whispers. "There's not enough salt in the world to hold all these back!"

The bear-monster growls and _spines_ erupt from its back, flaring a warning, but it swerves to avoid the Impala at the last second. Dean shivers as a wave of cold follows its passing.

"Dean!" Sam yelps, and Dean turns to see the face of a wendigo not six inches outside the passenger window. He grabs for his shotgun, but the wendigo's claws only scrape tracks down the glass before it too abandons them for easier prey.

Dean lets out a long breath. "Guess the devil isn't the only one who hates this car," he says, and blesses the Impala's wardings to every god listening. Carefully, carefully, he shifts them back into gear.

The view gets worse the further they go. A few more ghosts try to attack the car, but most are simply trying to get out—out of Purgatory, out of Centralia, out into the world like the devil they're bringing behind them. Before long, the road itself is barely passable, steam rushing out of deep cracks in the asphalt to mix with the fog in the air. Finally Dean pulls over.

"You call Bobby, I'll call Cas," he orders as a pair of vampires glides by. "We need reinforcements if we're gonna keep any more souls from getting out. Right? Sam?"

Sam's face is terribly blank. "He's coming, Dean," he says. "Before the next sunrise. How many has she already risen?"

"Not enough," Dean says urgently. "Not enough, Sammy, or he'd be here already, right? We've still got time. We've just gotta—" He addresses himself to the roof of the Impala. "Cas, buddy, we're at the last seal. It's in Centralia, Pennsylvania—Meg opened a goddamn gate to Purgatory and if enough monsters get out we're all dead. I don't know if you're at full strength yet, but we need you here _now_."

He waits. Something with too many legs skitters up and over the windshield.

"Cas?" Dean looks around the car, the desolate landscape outside, but there's no sign of him. "Look, if you can't come, at least send some of your pals, okay? If there was ever a time to let them in on things, it's right now—"

"He's not going to answer," says Sam.

Dean swallows. "What?"

Sam holds up his phone. "There's no signal. Nothing. Demons can block communication, remember? This is just like that town with Croatoan—she wants to isolate us. She's not taking any chances this time."

Dean really hates it when his little brother sounds like he knows exactly what a demon is thinking. "But Cas is an _angel_ ," he argues, hopelessness settling heavy in his gut. "You don't get prayers over wifi."

"She's the Queen of Hell." Sam runs a hand over his face. "I don't know how she did it, I don't know how far it spreads, but it's just you and me, Dean." Their eyes meet across the front seat of the Impala, this tiny island of safety among the monsters surrounding them. Sam's voice shakes. "We're on our own."

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA**

" _Jesse_ ," says Meg.

She remembers everything now. For nine months she was Julia Megan Wright, sixth child of a sixth child, honored beyond reckoning to be the one to sire the cambion. She remembers the glorious agony of pushing her son from her body and aching just once, just _once_ , to hold him in her arms—until, in a moment of weakness, he was ripped away from her. Eleven years later she found him again, only to be forced out and away from him by his own command. Made, apparently, to _forget_ him. She forgot what it is to love someone.

All the time. All this _time_ , that empty space inside her, the other end of the thread: her son, her boy. She laughs, weeping, as inhuman souls rush past her to break the final seal. His name is Jesse.

The rest of it filters in, slowly, flashes of the life he's had without her. Meg sees her son wandering the grounds of a commune, trying to make friends with a stray dog named Keener; joining a gaggle of bored and hungry thirteen-year-olds who bounce all over Adelaide; watching a dark-haired surfer slicing through the waves like she was born to it; meeting a couple of brothers who'd never let a monster go.

That last part snags her. A couple of—and then it comes: betrayal, terror, _agony_ , traps on the walls and the ceiling and the floor, _march twenty-ninth march twenty-ninth march twenty-ninth_ , a dash of holy water in her face _hey are we boring you_ , a knife prodding into her stomach and nicking something important—

A human body, starting to fail.

She stares at the gate without seeing it. Her son, trapped by a useless bunch of _hunters,_ when he could cut them all down with a thought—but he can't, not now. He can't even _heal_ anymore because she pulled all of his power, pulled so much from him that even her memories returned, and then she fought and held onto it because she must keep Purgatory open for the ten thousand souls, for Lucifer—

Her fists clench in her lap. Jesse is going to die. She is going to lose him, _again_ , and this time for good.

The gate _must_ stay open. Lucifer is coming, but so are the Winchesters, ready to stop her. She needs only a few more hours, maybe just a few more minutes if she can take them down quickly.

Jesse will not make it that long. A precious minute has already passed, and he is bleeding, her boy. Helpless. Cold. Giving up.

The gate must stay open. It will be fifty years before she can try again. Lucifer is coming.

Monsters rush past her. Seconds tick by. Her son bleeds.

"No," Meg says aloud. She won't lose him again. She gets to her feet, drags her arm across the wetness on her face, and takes one last look at the gate.

Then she lets go.

The Queen of Hell _pushes_ the same way she pulled, all the way across the world to some hellish little plywood shack in the Australian outback. She sends her son everything she's ever had and she silently begs him to do the only thing she's ever known how to, the only lesson she could possibly pass on to him now: _survive_.

Meg drops to the ground.

She may as well be human herself now, vulnerable and cold on the dry grass of Centralia. She's given up her power but she still feels their connection, wide-open now like it's never been before, letting her watch as Jesse's fire returns. He's killing them. They're burning for what they did to him, every last one, and when they get to Hell she'll make sure they burn forever.

In Australia a fire still rages, but she feels Jesse fold the power away. He's done it. He's safe. She pulls, just a little. All she needs is one iota of that power back and then she can go to him, she can be halfway around the world with a thought—

He yields. Meg stands up, every thought fixed on Jesse, and she goes.

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA**

Sam's hunterpedia project is the only reason they have a scanned copy of Colt's third journal to refer to, and if they live through this, he's going to rub it in Dean's face for the rest of their entire lives. "Colt left instructions," he says, balancing his laptop across his knees in the Impala's cramped front seat. "Dean—there's a time capsule buried in the cemetery, and it has the spell he used to put up that monster barrier. We can stop any more souls from coming out."

"And you didn't think to mention that before?" Dean complains, but for the first time since they got here some of the tension leaves his shoulders.

"It's written in code. The capsule was supposed to be opened every fifty years, the same time the gate got weak enough to open." Sam points to the ink-drawn map on the screen, which is labeled in Aramaic. "There's only one graveyard that's been here since 1866."

Dean turns the Impala's engine back on. "Lead the way, brother."

Driving back through Centralia is its own kind of challenge, vents of steam buckling the road below them as monster ghosts scrape their covetous claws over the Impala's black sides. Nothing pierces her steel, though, and Dean isn't the only one whispering thanks to the dashboard when they make it to the cemetery unscathed.

"Just like riding a bike, huh Sammy?" says Dean as they unpack the shovels from the trunk. "Bet I dig faster now with you out of practice."

Sam shoots a ghost over his brother's shoulder, and the shotgun blast feels like it's knocked him ten years into the past. "We'll just see about that," he says, and races through the headstones to find Colt's time capsule.

It doesn't take long for Sam's muscles to remember the rhythm as they tear into the soft earth. The dirt carries a bitter smell, a reminder that veins of coal are burning very close by. A ring of salt keeps the passing monsters from interfering, but Sam still sees them out of the corner of his eye, flickering past with every shovelful of dirt he tosses out. The shifting shapes remind him of—but that doesn't matter now. Once they get Colt's instructions, they'll be able to stop the flood of ghosts, and the Cage will stay shut. About three feet down, Sam hears the familiar sound of metal on wood.

The time capsule takes both of them to haul out of its hole, much heavier than its size would imply. It turns out that's because the box has about a foot of water inside it.

"Shit," says Dean, lifting up a yellowed piece of paper that dissolves between his fingers. If anything was written on it, the ink has long since washed out. "What're we supposed to do with this?"

"No," Sam mutters, frantically splashing through the box's murky contents. His phone falls out of his pocket and into the water, but he doesn't even stop to fish it out. "No, there's gotta be something left, come on—"

"You sure he didn't write the spell down somewhere else? _Anywhere_ else?" Dean rescues a damp leather pouch and shakes a pile of herbs onto the grass, all moldy beyond recognition. "Fuck!"

Sam tips the whole capsule over, page after page spilling out in front of him, but they all fall to pieces in his hands. How is he supposed to stop the monsters from escaping Purgatory if he can't read any of the instructions? How can he stay here kneeling in the mud when each second that goes by brings Lucifer closer to freedom?

"Sam! Get down!"

The rush of muddy water from the capsule broke their salt line, and now some phantom creature is aiming to make Dean its next meal. Sam scrambles for his shotgun. Dean blasts away one ghost, but another comes hot on its heels, and before either of them can stop it the monster knocks Dean tumbling backwards. His head hits a gravestone with a sickening crunch.

"Dean!"

Dean's body is limp. Sam shoots and shoots until nothing comes close to them anymore, ears ringing, but when he looks down his brother still hasn't moved. There's a cut sluggishly bleeding on Dean's forehead and this is just like when Jake opened the Devil's Gate a lifetime ago, this is just like being trapped against a tree while Azazel smirked down at them both, except this time there's no Colt to put an end to it and this time Sam is the one with Hell's life sentence hanging over him and he couldn't stop the hellhounds then and he can't stop any of it now and _someone is laughing at him_.

"Dean," Sam says, voice cracking. Beneath him the ground is on fire. "Wake up."

_Ssssam, Sam, Sam. My old friend._

Sam looks up. A pair of icy blue eyes stare back at him over a beautiful smile.

 _Told you I'd be back, didn't I?_ says Lucifer. Sam looked at him. He _looked_.

"S'm?" asks Dean muzzily, stirring under his hands. "Y'okay?"

The devil laughs and laughs and laughs.

Sam blacks out.

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

There's a voicemail that Dean Winchester will never hear, which goes like this:

"Hey, Dean. Listen, I'm on my way, but I've been checking the omens around Centralia and they're like nothing I've seen before. Meg's gone practically supernova." The sound of a truck's engine turning off. "I don't like that you're not answerin'. But if we've lost, God forbid—you tell the devil that old Bobby Singer's gonna see him real soon."

When he gets out of his truck, Bobby doesn't see the giant pawprints left in the mud of his yard. His eyes can't see the things that made them. But he does hear the growling as he reaches the front door. The scent of sulfur from invisible mouths. And he knows the hellhounds for what they are.

" _Balls_ ," he says.

He makes a break for the panic room in the basement. He's got his pistol on him and adrenaline working in his favor, and his bullets hit _something_ , he knows they do. He's got a chance.

He makes it all the way to the library before they rip him to shreds.

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA**

Sam and Dean come to the inevitable conclusion at the same time: there is a way to close the gate. But it means someone isn't going to be leaving Centralia.

Because they're brothers, and because they're Winchesters, they both rush to fall on the sword. "You take the car, how 'bout," Dean tries, "and drive until you get outside of Meg's supernatural jammer. You can get us some reinforcements, and I'll stay here and see if I can get the drop on the bitch—"

"Forget it," Sam says sharply. "I know you're just planning to throw yourself in when my back's turned."

"Well, I'd hate for you to have to watch," Dean snaps, and Sam remembers the hollow expression he saw on Dean's face before he took his own swan dive.

"It should be me," Sam says quietly. He tries to smile. "Can't be as bad as Hell."

"For _you_ ," Dean snarls. "What about me, huh? You'd leave me here again, you'd make me watch you jump _again_ —"

"Dean, I'm—" Sam takes a deep breath. "It should be me, because the way my head is, I might as well be back in the Cage. The wall is just going to keep going down and keep going down and you can't leave me here alone with that, you can't leave me with _Lucifer_ , that's _cruel_ , I couldn't stand it—at least if I went into Purgatory I could get some _fucking_ rest—"

"You'd have the car, you'd be safe there!"

"The car only matters because of you!" Sam says. His battered soul has never had to live in a world without Dean, and he isn't eager to try. "Listen. You have Ben, you have Bobby and Cas, people who need you here—"

"The kid was always gonna be better off without me," Dean says, eyes bright. "But I'm no good without you, Sam. I drink too much, I get nightmares—I can't do it alone, I can't."

"Yes you can," Sam says, throat almost too tight to talk.

"Yeah, well," Dean says. Stops. "I don't want to." He's trying so hard to keep his game face on, but a tear slips down his face anyway. "Sammy, I don't want to anymore, _please_ don't make me do it again, I can't watch you do it again—"

"Okay," Sam says, "yeah, Dean, okay, it's okay—" He must be so tired, Sam thinks, to beg. Just like him.

"Then I'll go." Dean rubs his eyes, relief in every motion. So happy to spare his brother pain.

Sam squeezes his shoulder. "We'll go together."

Dean blinks, hurt and confused. "What?"

"You said it yourself," Sam says gently, relieved now that he's come to it. Of course it was always going to be this way. "That it wouldn't be half as bad if we were together, right? This way I don't have to worry about you, and you don't have to worry about me."

"Sam, we have no idea what it's like in there."

"You'd be there to look after me," Sam says. He doesn't doubt that for a second. "And I'd be there to look after you."

"Together," Dean says, hesitant. Like he can't believe his good luck.

Sam smiles. "Yeah. We just gotta—" His throat tightens dangerously for a moment. "We gotta leave some kind of message. Can't just disappear on everyone."

"No, I can't do that to Ben." Dean shudders, no doubt remembering when their own father disappeared all those long years ago, setting them on this path. "My phone," he decides. "Recording doesn't need an outbound signal, and we can leave it in the time capsule so they'll find it. I'm sure Cas and Bobby will make it here soon enough."

They don't have a lot of time, so the message they leave is short and mostly informational—even Sam is bad at goodbyes. But right at the end, Dean clears his throat and says, "Ben, do you remember what I told you the last time I left your mom's? You pick a life, any life you want, and you take it with both hands. You deserve that. Just please don't pick mine, okay?"

And then he's silent, and Sam ends the recording, because there's nothing left for them to say.

It takes both of them to put the heavy lid back on the capsule, the phone safely wrapped in a plastic bag. Dean gives the stone an affectionate pat when they're done, the same way he used to clap Ben's shoulder, or Castiel's, or Sam's when he was younger. That's goodbye.

"Well," Dean says. He clears his throat and turns away. "Time to get this show on the road!"

"In the car, right?" Sam asks, heading back to it. "Only way to mow them down, we'd never get there on foot." Now that he's said goodbye, a profound sense of peace has washed over him. He's not scared. Not if Dean's with him.

"Of course in the car. If we're not leaving each other behind, we're sure not leaving my baby." He pauses, and then grins a little. "Told you we could live in her."

Sam laughs, hand on the door handle. Then, intangible, dread sweeps down his spine. They're being watched.

 _You can't run forever, Sam,_ Lucifer warns. No longer gleeful, no longer waiting to pull some terrifying trick; he's deathly furious and quiet like a snake before the strike. _Not from me. It's always only been a matter of time._

"Sam?" Dean asks.

"I can run from you today," Sam says, speaking directly to the hallucination for the first time in four years. He's not afraid. Dean is with him. He's going to get in the car and go with Dean, far away from here.

 _I'm coming for you_ , Lucifer snarls. _I will always come back in the end._

Sam takes a deep breath. Smiles.

Then he says, "Eat me, Lucifer."

And he slams the door of the Impala behind him.

 

* * *

 

 **DECEMBER 30, 2015** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

Afterward, Sam and Dean will remember it as their first good New Year's in a long time. Ben will remember it as his last.

"Fire in the hole!" Sam yells, just as the box of fireworks lights up. He jogs back to Ben and Dean and Bobby, the smile easy on his face.

Ben claps his hands at the colors blooming above them. "This is _so_ much cooler in a place without light pollution."

"It helps that they're a little bit bigger than is strictly legal," Bobby says, taking a swig from his hip flask. "But you boys burn down my house and you're rebuilding it from the ground up."

"It'll be fine," Dean dismisses. "Long as you don't try to sneak any home, Ben; Marie would kill me."

Ben laughs. "I promise," he says.

It is the last time all four of them are in the same place at the same time.

 

* * *

 

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **PURGATORY'S GATE**

"Last tunes?" Dean hollers as the car barrels over a pair of shifter-ghosts.

"Oh, who cares," Sam says back, giddy. They're going to die, they're going to _rest_ , and for once they get to go together. "Driver picks the music, right? Play your mullet rock."

"Metallica!" Dean decides, equally gleeful. "You're a peach, little brother. All right, you put it in, I need both hands on the wheel here—"

Sam obligingly shoves the Metallica tape into the cassette player, fumbling with it as the car bumps over things that have no business being on this earth. They don't know where the gate is, they're just following the monsters upstream, taking out as many as they can along the way. The not-quite-ghosts are corporeal enough to leave scratches the paintjob and guts on the windshield, but Dean just turns on the wipers, singing loud and off-key and joyful.

Finally they see it, a hole in the world opening up wider and wider by the second, dividing the stone that stretches up endlessly into the gray sky.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean says. The air is getting colder. "Come on, I _know_ you know this song—"

"Please," Sam laughs, but he does; he's heard it so many times it could be his own lullaby, and when the chorus comes in— " _Eeeeexit light!_ " he shouts, head thrown back. He can't hit a note either. The gate fills their vision; there is nothing else. " _Eeeenter ni-ight!_ "

" _Taaake my hand_ ," Dean crows, looking at Sam instead of the looming oblivion before them, and he's smiling too, grinning from ear to ear. He almost looks young again. " _We're off to Never-Never La—_ "

 

* * *

 **  
** **  
** **AUGUST 1, 2014** **  
** **SINGER'S SALVAGE**

"They're soulmates, you know," Castiel tells Balthazar as they prepare to leave Bobby Singer's property. "Being in such close proximity to Dean is probably the best thing Sam can do to ease his suffering."

Balthazar raises his eyebrows. "Don't tell me you buy into that rubbish, Cas."

"I know what I've seen." Castiel looks back toward the house because he can't help it. "Together they've achieved not just the incredible, but the impossible. They share a Heaven. And I know Dean's soul can heal Sam's."

"Romantic," Balthazar remarks dryly.

Castiel spreads his wings, earnest. "I'm serious. Two years ago, Sam was in a coma. Now he's capable of meeting an angel face to face every month, and quite often gets the best of you in conversation, too." He ignores Balthazar's snort. "Maybe, if he spends enough time near his brother..."

Balthazar readies himself for their return to Heaven. "If he spends enough time with his brother, what?"

Castiel shrugs. "Maybe he can find peace."

 

* * *

  

 **SOMETIME LATER** **  
** **PURGATORY**

_You are two you are one you are—how many? How many fractured pieces a restacked wall can't capture wracking your broken mind your broken skin and bones you lonely vessel you were mine—_

_It's quiet here._

_Even steel forgets what she is and rolls to stillness, no road to follow over the endless flat stone. Fog holds you like a mother in its arms like a brother in its arms like your brother, here and real even in the gray gray world, silent as he shapes your name with his beloved mouth. You say his name back, reaching, amazed at the way your fingers entwine. You feel your heart beating in your chest but you hear nothing; finally, finally the voices in your head are silent. Whatever you did to deserve this was not enough._

_Reluctantly you let him go (you are one? you are two) and move to the back seat because that is how you sleep, crook-kneed believing you're still small and your brother always a hand's breadth ahead of you. But he follows, leaves the wheel behind for the feel of you shoulder to shoulder as it always should have been and you lean against him, or he on you, holding each other up._

_Silence soothes you still unmoving as every other sensation fades to gray. No sound here, no sense of taste or touch or smell. When you close your eyes, you may as well not exist, except you know he is there next to you. Perhaps this is what it was like before you were born, with only the awareness of him: he is there, should be there, will be there, like a promise when you open your eyes, every time like the first all over again. Soul mate._

_Be still, and be not afraid. The world's eye closes behind you for the long-awaited sleep._

_Two._

_One._

 

* * *

 

 **APRIL 2, 2016** **  
** **OAK HILL LANE**

"He should have called by now," Ben says. He stares down at his phone, the long list of unanswered texts and calls. "I was supposed to hear from him tonight."

"There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation," says Marie, squeezing him in a side hug. It doesn't cross her mind to worry he will do something foolish. "Dean seems like a busy guy. I'm sure he'll call you back when he can."

"You don't understand," Ben says. Doing something foolish hasn't crossed his mind, either; not yet. "He's called every Saturday, no matter what, for _four years_. Even if it's just to say he doesn't have time to talk. He hasn't missed a single one." He meets her eyes. Sixteen is too young for so much worry. "Marie, I was supposed to hear from him _tonight_."

 

* * *

  

 **APRIL 10, 2016** **  
** **A BARN IN PENNSYLVANIA**

Castiel didn't even know anything was wrong until Bobby Singer appeared in Heaven.

The boys have lost their father all over again, but wherever they are, they don't know it—there's no sign of Sam and Dean in Heaven or on earth. Bobby doesn't know how they got Purgatory to close again; he doesn't know if Sam and Dean were killed for interrupting Meg's plans or if something more sinister is at play. But Castiel knows how to find out.

In an old barn in Pennsylvania, there's a burned circle of dirt where Castiel once heard the whisper of Dean's prayer in the back of his mind. How fortunate he'd felt then to have it again; how he looked forward to the next time.

Castiel squeezes his fist and a solid ring of fire rises to life around him. Angels don't need summoning rituals, not when they make themselves so helpless. He says, "I've come to bargain for the lives of Sam and Dean Winchester."

For a long time, there is nothing. Then the stars outside wink out, one by one, and he is overwhelmed with the stench of sulfur. The Queen of Hell pours in through the broken windows and door and curls her smoke in on itself, twists it into the visage of her host, ash falling as it forms.

There's no satisfaction on her face at seeing him like this. She is very, very tired.

"Hi," she says at last.

"I scoured every inch of Heaven," says Castiel. "If the Winchesters were still on earth, I would have found them. You _will_ bring them back from Hell."

She throws a pointed glance at the fire around him. "Clarence, I hate to tell you this, but I don't think _you're_ in the position to be making demands."

"Oh, this," Castiel says. "This isn't holy fire."

He jerks his hand up, wreathing Meg's host body in flame, but she does not burn. "You think _fire_ can hurt _me_?" she snarls, eyes gone yellow and glowing. The fire flies off of her, embers stinging his skin, and she slides back into smoke and hurtles towards him.

Castiel wraps his tattered wings tight around his vessel and then flings them open, sending Meg slamming into the wall of the barn. Chunks of wood and rot fall all around him as he squints to see where she's gone.

There—a sound to his right. She cracks a solid punch to his jaw that leaves him reeling; she must be very angry to fight like a human.

"Sam and Dean are _gone_ ," she growls, vicious. She smokes herself when he tries to grab for her, reappearing behind him. "You poor stupid son of a bitch, they're not in Hell. They closed Purgatory's gate by jumping in!"

Castiel stops mid-movement. No. No—

"Didn't leave _you_ so much as a text message, did they," Meg says, reveling in his pain. "That gate can't open again for fifty years. And if you do find a way to open Purgatory?" She laughs, half-hysterical. "The Morningstar will return as soon as they do. No matter what you do, _I win."_

Castiel screams with rage and throws his grace at her, a searing light that would leave any human on their knees. But she's too fast, dodging out of the way, and her counterattack sends him hurtling backwards through another wall of the barn. Behind him, he senses Balthazar's sword raised high. Another friend who died at her hands.

Castiel grabs Meg's wrist before her blow can land, white-hot and electric in his fury. Her skin peels and falls off in ashes. "I'll kill you," he snarls, shoving her backward. "God as my witness, I will kill you."

"You're broken, Castiel," Meg spits, narrowing her yellow eyes. "What are you and _God_ gonna do?"

"You forget," he says. "I've got nothing left to lose."

He lifts his hand, every inch of him crackling with electricity. She was right that he would never dare use Heaven's weapons near Sam or Dean ever again, but thanks to Meg, they are both unreachably far from this battle. Castiel grits his teeth, quivering, his rage and these weapons almost too much for his body to hold. For the first time tonight, Meg looks frightened.

She tries to flee, wrist turning to smoke and ash under his hands, but this time _he's_ faster; not for nothing was he the only angel to survive Dean Winchester's salvation from Hell. When she veers back towards the barn, a bolt of lightning strikes it out of existence, thunder shaking the ground. Meg slams into him in a whirl of hellfire, scoring two painful burns across his good wing, but Castiel just wraps both around her to sweep her vessel in close against his.

"No!" Meg shouts. "Let me go, he _needs_ me, I have to find him—"

"Lucifer will kill you if I don't first," Castiel growls.

She laughs again, fighting like a wild thing to keep his palm away from her. "We'll see," she says. "I'll see you in fifty years, Clarence, and I'll bring him with me."

She sets her whole body is ablaze with hellfire. Castiel shouts in pain, letting go without meaning to. And Meg, in a whirl of flames and sulfur, goes right back down into Hell.

And then Castiel is alone.

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2016** **  
** **THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK**

When Meg lands in Australia, everything is on fire.

Charred corpses lie in a ragged circle, their half-skeletal hands pressed against the remains of wooden walls still burning. None of them escaped. Every cowardly loathsome hunter who dared lay a hand on her son died as they deserved to, in flame and agony. "That's my boy," Meg whispers fiercely, clenching her fists. "My son."

But where is he? She crosses the remains of the shack, deliberately stepping on ribs and fingers as she goes even though their owners are long past feeling the crunch of bone underfoot. In the center of the destruction lies a body with its mouth burnt off, throat gaping in a permanent scream. Meg remembers what its face looked like when there was life behind those empty green eyes; Oliver Simms was handsome, once. She spits on his traitorous ashes.

"Jesse?" she calls. "I'm here—Jesse, I'm here, you're safe—"

The only sound is of the fire slowly dying and a wind stirring through the sand. A cambion can be halfway around the world with a thought, and after everything that happened to him here, he would have no reason at all to stay.

"Jesse," Meg says again. The grief hits slowly, but brings a new kind of torment she can't withstand: Jesse is gone, and Purgatory has closed with the last seal unbroken, and she has nothing to show for all her efforts. She's standing where her son stood not ten minutes earlier and she's still no closer to having him back.

She kicks the head off the nearest body in wordless rage. If these damned Simmses hadn't tortured him half to death, _broken_ him when he had so much strength to call on—

They'll pay for it, every last one of them. Meg helped her father eliminate the Campbell family tree and she'll do it again, track down every hunter who so much as _breathes_ the name Simms, and then she'll go back to her kingdom for the souls that died here today and teach them the true meaning of Hell. When she finds her son again, she will have something to show for their time apart.

His name is Jesse. She remembers now.

And no matter how long it takes, she is going to find him.

 

* * *

  

 **MARCH 29, 2019** **  
** **PURGATORY'S GATE**

Castiel stands before a wide blank wall.

Three years ago, he found Dean Winchester's cell phone in a time capsule here, explaining his and Sam's final choice to leave this world. Castiel has kept their words safe in his pocket ever since. He considered sharing them with Ben Braeden, the only of Dean's kin left alive, but the boy is no longer with his aunt in Cicero and in any case Dean warned him not to interact with Ben.

For three years he's been waiting for Meg to emerge from Hell, all the while scouring the earth for a denizen of Purgatory who might give him enough blood to force a door between worlds. Every day he remembers how carelessly he destroyed that last precious jar to spit in Raphael's face. If he had just—

There's much to regret. Time would pass faster in Heaven, he knows, but something about humanity makes him feel closer to Sam and Dean—gives him faith, when little else gives him reason to live at all.

He doesn't pray to his father anymore. God won't answer unless the world hangs in jeopardy, and thanks to the Winchesters, the earth is safe. But he can pray to Sam and Dean.

"Humans aren't meant for Purgatory," he says. They can't hear him through this gate, any more than Balthazar hears what Castiel says to his tree. He thinks perhaps the point of prayer is not the answer, but the act of speaking. "I don't know what has become of you. I find it impossible to believe that anything could erase souls like yours, that you may not even exist anymore, but that just makes me think you must be suffering and I, I can't do anything to help you."

He chokes and runs his fingers over the rough surface of the rock. He's tried everything, flung all the grace and souls at his disposal against this wall a hundred thousand times. But there's power in Purgatory beyond anything angels reckon with; the gate will open at its own time or not at all. No matter how many times he comes here, it will not budge.

"I don't know why we always seem to lose one another." He laughs, weak. "Maybe that's all humanity is, really: loss after loss after loss. And somehow we're just supposed to get back up, when the people we love—"

He shouldn't say _we_. Castiel, for all his shortcomings as an angel, is not yet a human being.

"At least you are both together," Castiel says. He rests his forehead against the rock, throat tight with unshed tears. "And I hope the time passes more quickly for you than for me."

He squeezes his eyes shut. There is no physical sensation he hates more than crying.

"I will wait," he whispers roughly. "Fifty years is nothing to me. I'll find you again, I swear it, and I'll get you out without opening the Cage. Somehow." He presses one hand to the stone in goodbye. "I will wait," he repeats. "But know that I miss you more than I can bear."

But missing the Winchesters or not, the earth Castiel walks spins on. Somewhere out there, a boy in a motel room plots demon omens in a fit of insomnia, just like his father and his father's father, though none of them wanted this legacy to be passed down. With him a girl keeps watch by the window, cleaning their weapons and making ready for the next hunt. In the Great Australian Desert, a boy in a red sweater tosses and turns in the dust, caught in a nightmare with the certainty that on the other side of the world, some fifteen hundred miles away from where Castiel stands at this very moment—

—there's a house in Nebraska burning to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the storylines we came up with for Enter Night, some changes have been made to [Cambion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/221050) to accommodate this new canon. If you're interested, the last chapter is where the majority of the changes are; go ahead and take a look!
> 
> Thanks again for reading, everyone. ♥
> 
> (If you'd like, you can [reblog this fic on Tumblr](http://cambionverse.tumblr.com/post/141879931657)!)


End file.
